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BOOK     190.9.SI6   c.  1 

SINGER    #    MODERN    THINKERS    & 

PTESENT    PROBLEMS 


III  II 

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MODERN    THINKERS 

AND  \  r{ 

PRESENT     PROBLEMS 

AN  APPROACH  TO  MODERN  PHILOSOPHY 
THROUGH  ITS  HISTORY 


BY 


EDGAR  A.  SINGER,  Jr.,  Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

1923 


Copyright,  1023, 

BY 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

November,  igag 


PRINTED  IN 
UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


PREFACE 

These  papers,  which  had  been  written  from  time 
to  time  and  for  various  occasions,  have  been  brought 
together  without  any  attempt  to  make  them  tell  a 
smooth  unbroken  story,  yet  not  without  regard  to 
their  connectedness.  They  have  sometimes  served 
me  to  bring  before  the  mind  of  youth  certain  prob- 
lems on  which  philosophers  have  thought  again  and 
again.  But  if  they  have  had  any  interest  for  youth, 
if  they  are  to  have  any  for  maturity,  it  can  only  be 
because  the  names  that  stand  over  the  chapters  might, 
if  moments  had  names,  be  those  of  moments  in  each 
man's  history. 

And  as  such,  unless  I  have  altogether  failed  to 
make  my  characters  real,  these  names  will  be  recog- 
nized. Who  has  not  sometime  been  that  Bruno 
who  stepped  from  his  Father's  House,  where  all  had 
revolved  so  solicitously  about  himself,  to  find  with- 
out the  cold  stars  gazing  down  on  his  atomy  from 
their  places  in  endless  emptiness? 

Who  has  not  come  to  feel,  with  Spinoza,  those  in- 
violable laws  of  mechanism  which  govern  the  world 
about  him  creeping  into  his  own  inmost  being,  threat- 

iii 


PREFACE 

ening  there  all  that  he  had  so  simply  and  yet  so 
dearly  clung  to  as  his  freedom  and  autonomy? 

How  many  reflecting  in  their  maturity  on  the  un- 
questioning faiths  of  their  childhood  have  thought 
to  bring  these  to  the  test  of  such  experience  as  natu- 
ral science  depends  on,  only  to  find,  as  Hume  found, 
these  faiths  unconfirmed? 

And  of  those  who  have  lived  through  this  moment 
of  disillusionment,  there  will  always  be  some  who 
will  have  come  in  their  own  way  to  the  position 
severe  reasoning  forced  on  Kant:  The  spiritual  as- 
pects of  reality  are  not  issues  of  science  and  intellec- 
tion, but  belong  to  that  other  order  of  truth  grasped 
by  the  "  practical  reason." 

Others,  meanwhile,  will  have  refused  to  let  their 
speculation  go  beyond  the  insight  experience  yields, 
and  of  these  some  at  least  will  have  found  that  ex- 
perience holds  out  nothing  hopeful  for  now  or  for- 
ever. They  will  have  seen  with  Schopenhauer  intp 
the  "  deep  abyss  "  and  found  at  the  bottom  of  it  only 
this  counsel:     Not-being  is  better  than  being. 

Or  if  perhaps  they  have  for  a  moment  thought, 
with  Nietzsche,  that  evolutionary  science  had  brought 
to  view  a  goal  that  gave  heart  to  the  pitiless  struggle 
of  life  by  holding  before  it  the  vision  of  the  '^  far 
future  man,"  they  may  in  the  end  have  come  to  see 
beyond  this  Superman.     But  to  have  seen  beyond 

iv 


PREFACE 

him  nothing  but  the  super-superman  is  to  have  seen 
the  goal  vanish  and  the  heart  lose  its  hope. 

And  what  then?  The  pages  on  "  Pragmatism  " 
and  on  "  Progress "  may  ofiFer  suggestions  of  an 
answer.  They  are  still  historical  in  their  spirit,  and 
like  those  that  had  gone  before  them  mean  to  illus- 
trate, not  to  demonstrate  or  affirm.  They,  too, 
would  stand  for  moments  of  any  thoughtful  life 
and  will  have  done  all  they  were  intended  to  do  if 
they  inform  such  a  life  with,  and  give  it  a  sense  of 
attachment  to  the  world  that  has  gone  before  and  is 
going  on  'round. 

But  if  one  would  at  the  outset  know  something  of 
what  the  writer  suspects  to  be  the  outcome  of 
ordered  and  historically  guided  reflection  on  these 
subjects,  let  him  turn  to  the  closing  chapter,  if  not 
for  encouragement  then  for  warning. 

Every  one  will  remember  the  word  to  his  reader 
with  which  Montaigne  closes  the  preface  to  his  Es- 
says. 'Tis  but  of  himself  he  would  write  and  "  it 
is  then  no  reason  thou  shouldst  employ  thy  time 
about  so  frivolous  and  vain  a  subject.  Therefore 
farewell." 

I  cannot  close  my  preface  without  confessing  a 
misgiving  that  must  have  beset  everyone  who  ever 
wrote  of  the  past:  that  whereas  he  set  out  to  lose 


PREFACE 

himself  in  history,  he  may  have  found  in  history 
nothing  but  himself.  But  on  the  bare  chance  of  this 
having  befallen  me,  I  need  not  say  "  farewell  "  be- 
forehand 5  for  well  I  know  no  reader  will  accom- 
pany me  far  through  this  past  save  one  who  finds 
himstli  there  too. 


•VI 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     Giordano  Bruno,  i 548-1600  .    .  3 

II.     Benedict  de  Spinoza   1632-1677  37 

III.    A  Disciple  of  Spinoza  (An  Illus- 
tration)    65 

-*IV.     David  Hume,  1711-1776  ....  97 

V.     Immanuel  Kant,  1724-1804     .    .  129 

--VI.    Arthur    Schopenhauer,     1788- 

1860 ISS 

VII.     Friederich  Nietzsche,  1844-1900  183 

VIII.     Pragmatism 213 

IX.     Progress 249 

X.     RoYCE  ON  Love  and  Loyalty    .  283 

XL     Retrospect  and  Prospect  ....  303 


Vll 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 
I 548-1 600 


GIORDANO    BRUNO 

The  straightest  way  to  the  heart  of  old  matters 
is  an  old  letter.  Here  is  one  written  on  the  twenty- 
third  of  May,  1592,  by  a  gentleman  of  Venice  to  the 
Father  of  the  Venetian  Inquisition. 
"  Very  Reverend  Father  and  Most-to-be-observed 
Sir: 

"  I,  Gioanni  Mocenigo,  son  of  the  Clarissimo 
Messer  Marcoantonio,  compelled  by  my  conscience 
and  ordered  by  my  confessor,  denounce  to  Your  Very 
Reverend  Paternity  Giordano  Bruno  of  Nola,  whom 
I  have  heard  say  on  various  occasions  when  he  was 
conversing  with  me  in  my  own  house,  that  Catholics 
do  but  blaspheme  when  they  hold  the  Bread  to  be 
transubstantiated  into  the  Flesh  j  that  he  is  against 
the  Mass 5  that  no  religion  satisfies  him  3  that  Christ 
was  a  charlatan  who,  since  he  resorted  to  tricks  to 
fool  people,  might  well  enough  have  foreseen  that 
he  would  die  a  criminal's  death  j  that  there  is  no 
distinction  of  Persons  in  God;  .  .  .  that  the  world 
is  eternal  and  that  there  are  an  infinite  number  of 
worlds,  and  that  God  is  continually  making  an  in- 
finity of  them  because  He  wants  as  many  as  He  can 

3 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

have  5  that  Christ  performed  specious  miracles  3  that 
he  was  a  magician  and  the  apostles  were  magicians 
too."  .  .  . 

The  letter  runs  on  in  breathless  denunciation,  but 
already  one  begins  to  make  out  the  image  of  Bruno 
reflected  in  the  average  mind  of  his  time.  The 
limited  intelligence  of  Mocenigo  has  honestly  mis- 
understood some  of  Bruno's  utterances,  his  malice 
has  distorted  others  j  but  the  perversity  of  the  whole 
is  not  due  to  these  faults  of  detail.  Lost  in 
this  jumble  of  stock  heresies  lies  hidden  a  great  idea, 
the  greatest  perhaps  that  has  ever  been  contributed 
by  a  single  mind  to  the  cause  of  our  science.  "  And 
he  says  the  world  is  eternal  and  that  there  are  an 
infinity  of  worlds."  This  sentence  has  brought  the 
old  world  to  an  end,  has  shattered  the  heavens 
under  which  Christendom  was  then  living,  yet  it  falls 
on  the  ear  of  its  time  with  no  more  meaning  or  por- 
tent than  a  doubt  respecting  the  doctrine  of  trans- 
substantiation  or  the  authenticity  of  miracles.  Bruno, 
throughout  the  course  of  his  driven  life  and  up  to 
the  moment  of  his  tragic  death,  knew  most  forms  of 
martyrdom.  He  bore  none  of  these  meekly,  for  his 
was  a  lusty  soul  that  did  not  love  to  suffer.  But 
neither  the  hatred  nor  the  cruelty  of  his  world  seems 
to  have  hurt  him  so  to  the  quick  as  did  its  stupidity. 
Doubt  him  and  hate  if  you  will  5  but  value  him  you 

4 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

must!  He  was  master  of  a  great  idea  and  unac- 
quainted with  modesty. 

Meanwhile  Mocenigo  has  more  to  say  of  this 
sinner:  "  He  has  expressed  the  intention  of  making 
himself  the  founder  of  a  new  sect  under  the  name  of 
the  new  philosophy.  He  has  said  that  the  Virgin 
could  not  have  brought  a  child  into  the  world,  and 
that  our  Catholic  faith  is  full  of  blasphemies  against 
the  majesty  of  Godj  that  it  would  be  better  to  sup- 
press the  largesses  of  wrangling  friars  because  they 
befoul  the  world  j  that  they  are  all  asses  and  that 
our  common  opinions  are  the  teaching  of  asses  5  that 
we  have  no  proof  that  our  faith  has  merit  with  God  5 
that  the  simple  rule  of  not  doing  unto  others  what 
we  would  not  have  done  unto  us  is  sufficient  for 
right  living.".  .  .  Perhaps  I  may  stop  here.  Evi- 
dently one  who  could  be  guilty  of  all  these  follies 
would  be  ingenious  in  inventing  others,  and  Moce- 
nigo's  letter  may  run  endlessly  on. 

While  this  letter  was  writing,  Bruno  lay  locked  in 
a  room  of  Mocenigo's  house.  "  I  had  thought  to 
learn  from  him,"  Mocenigo  explains,  "  not  knowing 
him  to  be  the  wicked  man  he  is,  and  having  noted  all 
these  things  to  lay  before  your  Very  Reverend  Pa- 
ternity, and  fearing  that  he  would  take  his  departure 
as  he  said  he  wished  to  do,  I  have  locked  him  in  a 
room  at  your  disposal.     As  I  think  him  possessed 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

of  the  devil,  I  hope  you  will  decide  quickly  what  is 
to  be  done  with  him.  .  .  ." 

It  has  sometimes  been  wondered  how  Bruno  came 
to  accept  the  invitation  of  Mocenigo  to  take  up  his 
residence  in  Venice.  Italy  was  for  him  a  place  of  such 
peril  that  it  seems  incredible  he  should  have  ventured 
to  set  foot  in  it.  "  Tell  me  one  thing  more,"  con- 
cludes a  letter  written  in  this  same  year  1592  by  a 
gentleman  of  Bologna  to  a  friend  in  Padua,  "  tell 
me  one  thing  more.  Giordano  Bruno,  whom  you 
knew  at  Wittenberg,  the  Nolan,  is  said  to  be  living 
among  you  just  now  at  Padua.  Is  it  really  so? 
What  sort  of  man  is  this  that  he  dares  to  enter  Italy, 
which  he  left  in  exile  as  he  himself  used  to  confess? 
I  wonder,  I  wonder.  I  cannot  yet  believe  the  rumor, 
although  I  have  it  on  good  authority.  You  shall 
tell  me  whether  it  is  true."  And  history  has  won- 
dered all  the  more  seeing  that  Bruno  himself  had 
long  before  prophesied  the  result.  "  Torches,"  he 
had  written,  "  fifty  or  a  hundred,  will  not  fail  me 
though  the  march  be  at  noonday  should  it  be  my  fate 
to  die  in  a  Catholic  country." 

So  far  as  documents  furnish  any  answer  to  this 
question,  it  lies  suggested  in  a  second  letter  written 
by  Mocenigo  to  the  Holy  Inquisition  two  days  after 
the  denunciation.    "  In  the  course  of  the  day  that  I 

6 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

kept  Giordano  Bruno  locked  up,  I  asked  him  whether 
the  things  that  he  would  not  teach  me,  as  he  promised 
to  do  in  return  for  the  many  kindnesses  I  had  done 
him  and  the  many  gifts  that  I  had  given  him,  whether 
he  would  not  consent  to  teach  me  them  if  I  abstained 
from  denouncing  him  for  all  the  criminal  things  he 
had  uttered  to  me  against  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and 
against  the  Holy  Catholic  Church.  He  answered 
that  he  did  not  fear  the  Inquisition,  for  he  had 
harmed  no  one  by  living  in  his  own  way,  and  more- 
over he  could  not  recall  having  said  anything  sinful, 
but  that  if  he  had  said  such  things  he  had  said  them 
only  to  me,  and  he  need  not  fear  that  I  would  do  him 
harm  in  the  way  I  suggested."  Those  who  can  may 
believe  that  Bruno  is  here  telling  the  truth  about 
himself.  Those  who  can  may  believe  that  he  who 
eight  years  before  and  at  a  safe  distance  from  Italy 
had  so  clearly  seen  the  torches  that  awaited  him 
there,  had  since  grown  blind  to  them  or  indifferent. 
The  next  document  of  the  trial  is  brief  enough. 
Under  date  of  the  following  day  —  that  is,  Tuesday, 
the  twenty-sixth  of  May  —  is  found  this  entry: 
"  Clarissimo  Dom  Aloysius  Fuscari  presiding.  Pre- 
sented himself  Dom  Matheus  de  Avantio,  Captain 
of  the  Constabulary,  and  reported  as  follows:  Sab- 
bath  at   three    o'clock   of   the    night,^    I    arrested 

^  This  would  be  Saturday  afternoon. 

7 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

Giordano  Bruno  of  Nola,  whom  I  found  in  a  house 
over  against  Saint  Samuels,  in  which  dwells  the 
Clarissimo  Ser  Gioanni  Mocenigo,  and  I  have  im- 
prisoned him  in  the  Prisons  of  the  Holy  Office,  and 
this  I  have  done  by  order  of  this  Holy  Tribunal." 

The  doors  of  the  prison  closing  on  Bruno  bring  to 
an  end  the  story  of  his  life,  but  from  behind  these 
doors  there  come  to  us  fragments  of  the  story  itself 
as  Bruno  retells  it  to  his  judges.  For  on  the  very 
day  of  his  arrest  he  is  examined  by  a  tribunal  com- 
posed of  the  Apostolic  Nuncio,  the  Patriarch  of 
Venice,  the  Very  Reverend  Father  Inquisitor.  Be- 
fore these,  as  the  clerk  of  the  tribunal  records  it,  was 
brought  a  certain  man  of  ordinary  height  with  a 
chestnut  beard,  who,  when  he  had  been  admonished 
to  speak  the  truth,  and  before  any  question  could 
be  put  to  him,  burst  out  of  his  own  accord :  "  I  will 
tell  the  truth.  Several  times  have  I  been  threatened 
with  being  brought  before  this  Holy  Office,  but  I 
have  always  taken  the  threat  for  a  joke,  because  I 
am  ever  ready  to  give  account  of  myself."  Where- 
upon he  tells  how,  having  found  himself  at  Frank- 
furt the  previous  year,  he  received  there  two  letters 
from  Gioanni  Mocenigo,  inviting  him  to  come  to 
Venice  to  instruct  Mocenigo  in  the  art  of  memory 
and  the  art  of  invention,  for  which  this  Venetian 
gentleman  had  promised  to  pay  him  well  and  treat 

8 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

him  in  a  way  that  should  content  him.  And  so 
Bruno  had  come  to  Venice  seven  or  eight  months  be- 
fore, living  first  in  lodgings,  then  for  a  brief  space 
in  Padua,  until  some  two  months  prior  to  his  arrest 
he  had  taken  up  his  residence  in  Mocenigo's  own 
house.  We  already  know  how,  "  compelled  by  his 
conscience  and  ordered  by  his  confessor,"  Mocenigo 
finally  disposed  of  his  guest. 

Then  Bruno  questioned  by  the  tribunal,  laid  be- 
fore it  a  formal  account  of  his  life.  "  My  name  is 
Giordano  Bruno,  of  the  family  of  the  Bruni,  of  the 
city  of  Nola,  twelve  miles  from  Naples.  In  this 
place  I  was  born  and  raised,  and  my  profession  was 
and  is  letters  and  the  sciences.  My  father  was  named 
Gioanni,  and  my  mother  Fraulissa  Savolina,  and  my 
father's  calling  was  that  of  a  soldier.  He  is  dead 
since,  and  my  mother  too. 

"  I  am  about  forty-four  years  of  age,  and  I  was 
born,  so  far  as  I  have  heard  from  my  people,  in  the 
year  1548.  I  remained  in  Naples  learning  the  hu- 
manities, logic,  and  dialectics  until  fourteen  years  of 
age  .  .  .  and  then  I  took  the  habit  of  Saint  Dominic 
in  the  monastery  or  convent  of  Saint  Dominic  in 
Naples,  and  was  invested  by  a  Padre  who  was  then 
prior  of  that  convent,  called  Maestro  Ambrosio 
Pasqua.  When  the  year  of  probation  was  passed,  I 
was  admitted   by   him   to   profession,   which   was 

9 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

solemnly  made  in  the  same  convent.  .  .  .  Later  I 
was  promoted  to  holy  orders  and  at  the  usual  season 
to  the  priesthood.  I  sang  my  first  mass  in  Cam- 
pagnia,  a  city  of  the  same  state  at  a  distance  from 
Naples,  residing  the  while  in  a  convent  of  the  order, 
the  San  Bartholomeo,  and  continued  in  the  religious 
habit  of  Saint  Dominic,  celebrating  masses  and  the 
divine  offices,  obedient  to  the  superior  of  the  Order 
and  to  the  priors  of  the  monasteries  and  convents 
where  I  was  stationed  until  1576.  .  .  .'* 

I  have  not  wanted  to  interrupt  Bruno,  nor  to  hurry 
him  in  his  story,  tedious  as  it  is  in  the  telling.  Little 
event  after  little  event  of  his  secular  and  of  his 
religious  life  befalls  with  the  trivial  monotony  of 
dropping  rain.  But  is  it  not  just  so  that  these  little 
events  and  endless  others  like  them  must  have  fallen 
on  the  soul  of  the  living  Bruno,  soaking  in,  soaking  in, 
unnoticed  as  rain,  until  his  very  humors  ran  with  their 
humor?  Now  their  humor  was  the  spirit  of  the  old 
world,  the  spirit  of  his  Father's  House.  Would  it 
not  be  curious  if,  having  pulled  down  this  ridiculous 
old  dwelling  and  in  the  very  act  of  dancing  among 
its  ruins,  Bruno  should  suddenly  come  to  see  that  it 
was  the  only  house  his  soul,  being  such  a  soul  as 
it  was,  could  dwell  in?  If  something  of  this  kind 
did  not  happen  at  a  moment  of  his  life  we  are  fast 
approaching,  then  only  the  gods  know  what  did  hap- 

10 


GIORDANO  BRUNO 

pen.  But  I  am  anticipating,  or  rather  laying  up  re- 
flections against  our  hour  of  need.  For  the  moment 
we  have  no  more  than  come  to  the  day  in  Bruno's 
life  when  he  stepped  out  of  his  Father's  House  to 
make  his  way  ins  Freie  hincms. 

Fifty  years  ago,  before  Berti  had  unearthed  the 
documents  of  this  trial,  it  was  difficult  to  trace  the 
life  of  Bruno.  Since  then  it  has  become  well-nigh 
impossible.  Documents  are  a  great  embarrassment 
to  the  conscientious  historian.  They  are  there,  these 
documents,  and  have  to  be  put  in  the  textj  the  truth 
about  the  case  must  be  relegated  to  the  foot-notes. 
Now  the  text  runs  in  this  wise:  "In  1576  .  .  .  I 
was  in  Rome  at  the  Convent  of  Minerva,  obedient 
to  the  orders  of  Maestro  Sisto  de  Luca,  Procurator 
of  the  Order.  Thither  I  had  gone  to  present  myself 
because  at  Naples  two  processes  had  been  instituted 
against  me,  the  first  for  having  given  away  certain 
images  of  the  saints  and  retaining  only  a  crucifix,  it 
being  thought  that  this  showed  a  lack  of  respect  for 
the  images  of  the  saints  j  and  the  other  for  having 
said  to  a  novice  who  was  reading  a  story  of  the  Seven 
Beatitudes  in  verse.  What  did  he  think  he  was  doing 
with  a  book  like  that? — why  didn't  he  throw  it 
away  and  read  rather  some  other  book,  as  the  lives 
of  the  Holy  Fathers?    This  process  was  renewed  at 

II 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

the  time  I  went  to  Rome,  with  other  articles  added 
to  it  which  I  do  not  know,  for  I  abandoned  the  order 
and  threw  aside  the  habit  and  went  to  Noli  in  the 
region  of  Genoa,  where  I  supported  myself  four  or 
five  months  teaching  grammar  to  young  boys." 

This  is  indeed  the  text,  but  is  not  a  comment  in- 
evitable? What!  Bruno  would  have  us  believe  that 
in  1576  he  is  of  such  fearful  mood  and  timid  temper 
that,  having  no  more  on  his  conscience  than  the 
events  recited,  he  abandons  church  and  country,  peace 
and  security  at  the  mere  frown  of  his  Order,  but 
that  in  1592,  having  in  the  meanwhile  upset, 
smashed,  and  abused  the  Christian  world,  he  can 
look  upon  the  Inquisition  without  fear,  bethinking 
him  that  he  had  harmed  no  man  in  living  in  his  own 
way? 

However,  flee  he  did.  What  followed  on  this 
flight  he  recounts  to  his  judges  as  his  trial  proceeds. 
Sixteen  years  of  as  hard-driven  a  life  as  one  could 
wish  for  one's  dearest  foe,  from  Italy  to  Switzerland 
(to  the  Geneva  of  Calvin's  day,  where  one  may 
imagine  that  Bruno  was  as  much  at  home  as  fire  on 
an  iceberg),  then  across  to  France,  from  Lyons  to 
Toulouse,  from  Toulouse  to  Paris,  from  France  to 
England,  from  London  back  to  Paris,  then  hastily 
to  Germany,  through  many  German  and  Bohemian 
cities!     Sixteen  years  of  homeless,  friendless  pov- 

12 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

erty,  now  teaching  small  boys,  now  lecturing  at  great 
universities,  now  living  with  fine  gentlemen,  received 
by  a  king  or  a  queen,  now  gathering  a  few  curious 
students  about  him,  who  somehow  confused  the 
promise  of  the  great  idea  with  old  mysteries  and  the 
arts  we  call  black.  Until  at  last  we  find  him  at 
Frankfurt  receiving  Mocenigo's  letters  promising 
him  a  home  in  Italy,  his  native  land,  and  a  treatment 
that  should  content  him. 

Yet  these  years  of  travail  were  those  in  which  his 
works  were  written,  the  Italian  dialogues  in  Eng- 
land, the  Latin  poems  in  Germany.  The  great  idea 
had  received  full  expression,  the  "  Excubitor,"  as 
Bruno  called  himself,  the  Awakener  of  sleeping 
minds,  had  blown  his  trumpet  and  the  walls  of  the 
world  had  fallen.  Splendid  is  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  Bruno  first  announces  this  new  vision  of  the 
morning:  "Lo!  here  is  one  who  has  swept  the  air, 
pierced  the  heavens,  sped  by  the  stars  and  passed  be- 
yond the  bounds  of  the  world,  who  has  annihilated 
the  fantastic  spheres  with  which  foolish  mathemati- 
cians and  vulgar  philosophers  had  closed  us  in.  The 
key  of  his  diligent  curiosity  has  opened  to  the  view 
of  every  sense  and  every  power  of  reason  such  closets 
of  truth  as  can  be  opened  by  us.  He  has  stripped 
nature  of  her  robe  and  veil.  He  has  given  eyes  to 
the  mole,  vision  to  the  blind.  .  .  •  No  longer  is  our 

13 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

reason  imprisoned  within  the  confines  of  imaginary 
heavens.  .  .  .  We  know  that  there  is  but  one 
heaven,  one  immense  ether,  where  magnificent  fires 
maintain  their  proper  distances  by  reason  of  that 
eternal  life  in  which  they  have  part.  These  flaming 
bodies  are  the  ambassadors  which  announce  the  ex- 
cellence of  God's  glory  and  majesty." 

This  is  indeed  the  voice  of  an  Awakener.  But, 
alas  for  awakeners!  the  vision  of  the  morning  is 
never  fair  to  those  just  shaken  out  of  their  dreams. 
In  an  introductory  letter  to  the  last  of  the  dialogues 
we  catch  an  echo  of  the  sleeper's  complaint:  "  If  I 
shoved  a  plow,  if  I  kept  a  flock,  if  I  cultivated  a 
garden,  if  I  mended  old  clothes,  no  one  would  notice 
me,  few  would  consider  me,  not  many  would  find 
fault  with  me,  and  I  could  easily  please  everybody. 
But  for  having  been  studious  of  the  field  of  nature, 
solicitous  for  the  pasture  of  the  soul,  enamored  of 
the  cultivation  of  the  mind,  a  very  Daedalus  fashion- 
ing raiment  for  the  intellect,  every  passer-by 
threatens  me,  every  one  who  sees  me  attacks  me,  who 
comes  upon  me  rends  me,  who  lays  hold  on  me  de- 
vours. It  is  not  one,  it  is  not  a  few  3  it  is  many,  it  is 
almost  all.  If  you  would  know  why  this  is,  I  will 
tell  you  the  reason  of  it  —  I  despise  the  crowd,  I 
hate  the  mob,  the  multitude  contents  me  not.  One 
thing  I  love,  one  thing  for  whose  sake  I  am  free  in 

14 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

bondage,  content  in  pain,  rich  in  poverty,  alive  in 
very  death.  One  thing  for  whose  sake  I  envy  not 
those  who  are  slaves  in  their  liberty,  troubled  in  their 
pleasure,  poor  in  their  riches,  dead  in  their  life. 
Their  body  is  the  chain  that  binds  them,  in  their 
mind  is  the  hell  that  tortures  them,  in  their  spirit  the 
falsehood  that  makes  them  sick,  in  their  soul  the 
lethargy  that  kills.  Not  theirs  the  greatness  of  mind 
which  frees,  the  breadth  of  view  which  ennobles. 
Not  theirs  the  splendor  which  illumines,  nor  the  sci- 
ence which  gives  life."  It  is  a  brave,  even  an  over- 
brave  flourish  with  which  Bruno  ends  this  proemial 
epistle:  "  And  so  the  gods  deliver  me  from  all  those 
who  unjustly  hate  me,  and  my  God  be  always  propi- 
tious unto  me!  .  .  .  The  stars  let  my  sowing  fit  the 
field  and  the  field  my  sowing,  that  the  world  be  made 
content  with  the  useful  and  glorious  fruits  of  my 
labors!  .  .  .  And  if  I  err,  I  truly  do  not  believe 
myself  to  err  5  whether  speaking  or  writing,  I  do  not 
dispute  for  the  love  of  victory.  .  .  .  For  love  of 
true  wisdom  and  desire  for  true  insight  I  exhaust,  I 
crucify,  I  torture  myself.  .  .  ." 

Brave  is  the  flourish,  how  over-brave  we  realize 
with  unexpected  intensity  as  we  follow  this  solemn 
trial  to  its  last  scene.  Having  recounted  the  episodes 
of  his  life,  Bruno  proceeds  to  the  explanation  and 


IS 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

defense  of  his  teachings.  At  first  the  new  philoso- 
phy is  presented  with  no  little  boldness  and  confi- 
dence, its  difference  from  the  formal  teaching  of 
Christianity  admitted  and  even  pointed  out.  But 
always  with  a  certain  reserve,  as  of  one  who  would 
say,  "  Yes,  I  have  broken  the  frame  and  melted 
the  flesh  of  your  religion,  but  if  you  will  let  me,  I 
will  show  how  much  more  nobly  its  divine  spirit 
dwells  in  the  new  body  I  have  made  for  it."  Now 
thi^  new  body  differs  in  no  important  way  from  the 
physical  universe  as  we  see  it  today,  so  that  Bruno's 
problem  has  been  the  problem  of  all  Christian 
thought  since  his  time.  What  Aquinas  had  done  in 
the  way  of  making  the  spirit  of  Christianity  at  home 
in  the  finite  heaven-enclosed  world  of  Aristotle, 
that  Bruno  felt  must  be  done  over  again,  now 
that  the  world  was  no  longer  finite  and  the  distinc- 
tion between  heaven  and  Earth  had  vanished.  This 
is  the  thought  that  pervades  the  first  days  of  Bruno's 
account  of  himself  before  the  Venetian  tribunal,  but 
as  one  by  one  the  accusations  of  Mocenigo's  letter 
fall  on  him,  he  seems  to  lose  hope  and  confidence  in 
himself.    He  denies,  and  denies,  and  denies! 

I  am  not  convinced  that  he  is  telling  the  truth  in 
these  denials.  I  am  not  convinced  that  Mocenigo's 
account  of  him,  barring  a  few  obvious  misunder- 
standings, is  false  in  spirit.    No  more  am  I  convinced 

i6 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

that  Bruno  has  been  frightened  into  lying  himself 
out  of  danger.  He  seems  to  me  to  say,  "  Alas!  if 
these  matters  on  which  you  question  me  are  of  the 
essence  of  Christianity,  then  have  I  been  wrong  in 
supposing  that  the  old  wine  can  be  put  in  the  new 
bottle."  Driven  and  perplexed,  he  has  to  decide 
which  lies  nearest  to  his  heart,  the  new  bottle  or  the 
old  wine.  Remember  him  fleeing  in  his  early  man- 
hood from  his  Father's  House,  ostensibly  in  childish 
fear  and  unwillingly,  but  really  perhaps  because  he 
needed  space,  endless  space,  through  which  to  follow 
the  new  idea.  Remember  him  coming  back  to  Italy 
sixteen  years  later,  ostensibly  because  he  realized 
that  his  manner  of  living  and  thinking  had  hurt  no 
man  and  so  ought  to  bring  down  no  judgment  on  his 
head,  but  really  perhaps  because  the  craving  for  the 
old  wine  was  deeper  in  him  than  the  enthusiasm  for 
the  new  bottle.  Perhaps  then  we  can  understand  the 
closing  scene  of  his  trial  at  Venice.  "  It  may  be," 
he  cries,  "  in  the  long  time  that  has  passed  I  have 
committed  other  sins  and  departed  from  the  Church 
in  other  ways  than  those  which  I  have  explained,  and 
that  I  have  not  cleansed  myself  of  all  matters  of 
censure,  but  although  I  have  thought  much  over 
these  things,  I  can  recall  nothing  more.  I  have  con- 
fessed, and  I  now  confess  anew  my  errors,  and  I  am 
here  in  the  hands  of  Your  Most  Illustrious  Lord- 

17 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

ships  to  receive  punishment  for  the  saving  of  my 
soul.  My  soul  cannot  express  the  depth  of  its  con- 
trition for  my  fault."  And  falling  on  his  knees,  he 
said,  "  I  humbly  ask  pardon  of  the  Lord  God  and  of 
Your  Most  Illustrious  Lordships  for  all  the  errors 
which  I  have  committed  and  which  I  now  stand 
ready  to  expiate  in  such  wise  as  your  wisdom  may 
think  proper  and  judge  expedient  for  my  soul.  And 
moreover,  I  beg  that  you  give  me  a  punishment 
which  shall  exceed  in  severity  rather  than  set  any 
public  example  which  may  throw  dishonor  on  the 
sacred  religious  habit  I  have  worn.  And  if 
by  God's  mercy  and  the  mercy  of  Your  Most  Illus- 
trious Lordships,  life  shall  be  spared  me,  I  promise 
to  make  such  notable  reform  of  my  life  as  shall  pay 
for  the  scandal  I  have  given  with  equal  and  greater 
edification." 

In  this  unhappy  posture  I  leave  Bruno  the  man  to 
take  up  the  story  of  his  great  idea.  We  shall  see  him 
once  more  indeed,  at  the  moment  when,  eight  years 
later,  he  calmly  dies  for  the  idea  he  now  so  abjectly 
abandons  J  but  no  understanding  of  the  alternating 
enthusiasm  and  despair  that  filled  this  life  can  afford 
to  neglect  the  qualities  of  the  gospel  it  stood  for, 
forsook,  then  died  for  in  the  end. 

Like  all  very  great  ideas,  this  one  is  of  the  sim- 

i8 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

plest.  It  begins  with  the  observation  that  the  flame  of 
a  candle  grows  bigger  as  we  approach  it,  smaller  as  we 
recede  from  it.  Nothing  very  new  in  this,  you  say, 
nor  very  imposing.  No,  it  is  the  next  step  that  was 
so  new  in  Bruno's  day,  and  of  such  tremendous  de- 
structive and  creative  power.  Yet  it  is  just  as  simple 
as  the  first.  What  is  true  of  a  candle  flame  must  be 
true  of  a  sun  and  of  a  star.  Is  it  not  indeed  simple? 
Yes,  but  in  all  the  long  while  the  world  had  lasted 
it  had  occurred  to  no  one  before  Bruno  to  seize  upon 
this  simple  idea  and  to  follow  whither  it  led.  It  led 
far,  wonderfully  far.  It  led  Bruno  to  journey  in  im- 
agination out  and  out  toward  those  most  distant  stars 
that  were  then  called  fixed,  and  were  indeed  sup- 
posed to  be  fixed  in  one  great  sphere  that  enclosed 
all  things,  beyond  which  was  nothing,  and  not  even 
nothing,  for  there  was  no  beyond  5  space  ended  where 
matter  ended,  at  the  walls  of  the  world.  But  Bruno 
as  he  journeyed  saw  this  great  sun  of  ours  growing 
smaller  and  smaller  as  he  receded  from  it,  and 
yonder  star  growing  larger  and  larger  as  he  ap- 
proached it,  until  the  most  wonderful  thing  hap- 
pened. The  sun  began  to  look  more  and  more  like 
a  star,  and  the  star  more  and  more  like  a  sun.  There 
was  now  no  escaping  the  conclusion  —  the  stars  that 
had  been  called  fixed  are  other  suns,  our  sun  but  a 
near-lying  star. 

19 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

A  child  might  have  grasped  this  idea  which 
brought  a  world  to  an  end.  Do  I  say  a  child?  It 
may  be  that  Bruno  was  that  child,  for  his  mind 
throughout  had  much  of  the  waywardness,  some- 
thing of  the  random  and  tumultuous  association  of 
a  child's  mind.  The  past  might  interest  him,  might 
even  inspire  him  5  it  never  had  the  power  of  captur- 
ing and  holding  him.  But  childish  as  it  was,  this 
idea  did  destroy  the  old  world,  for  if  stars  were  in 
no  wise  different  from  the  sun  we  know,  nor  the  sun 
from  a  star,  evidently  there  was  at  least  one  star  that 
was  not  fixed  to  the  ethereal  sphere  that  contained 
all  things.  There  could  then  be  no  longer  any  mo- 
tive for  supposing  these  other  suns  to  be  all  at  the 
same  distance  from  the  center.  They  might  be  any- 
where, they  might  even  (Bruno  had  this  very 
modern  idea)  be  moving  with  respect  to  each  other. 
Inevitably  Bruno  must  come  to  look  upon  the  stars 
as  suns  sprinkled  irregularly  throughout  the  regions 
of  infinite  space. 

Nor  was  this  all.  Coming  after  Copernicus  as  he 
did,  Bruno  had  from  the  first  grasped  with  enthu- 
siasm Copernicus'  idea  that  not  the  Earth  but  the 
Sun  was  the  center  of  the  sphere.  I  say  the  center 
of  the  sphere,  for  we  must  remember  that  Coperni- 
cus never  touched  the  boundary  of  the  world,  but 
only  changed  its  center  from  Earth  to  Sun.     In 

20 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

Copernicus'  thought  we  still  lived  within  a  star- 
spangled  heaven.  But  now  that  Bruno  had  shat- 
tered this  heaven  and  sprinkled  these  stars  through 
space,  he  could  not  well  help  surrounding  those 
other  suns  with  planets,  until  not  merely  an  infinity 
of  suns  but  an  infinity  of  solar  systems  spread  them- 
selves out  before  his  imagination.  But  could  he  stop 
here?  When  one  has  once  destroyed  the  distinction 
between  Heaven  and  Earth,  when  one  has  once  begun 
to  think  of  nature  as  everywhere  alike,  it  is  not  easy 
to  stop.  Was  not  one  of  the  planets  making  its 
journey  around  our  sun  inhabited  with  manifold 
forms  of  life?  Then  why  should  they  not  all  be? 
And  is  it  likely  that  one  solar  system  should  be  a 
scene  of  life  and  the  infinity  of  others  not?  So  it  was 
that  Bruno,  looking  out  into  space,  saw  as  many  in- 
habited globes  as  there  were  "  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  stars.'' 

These  are  the  matters  which  Bruno  brought  back 
with  him  from  his  journey  to  the  stars  and  beyond 
the  confines  of  the  world.  I  have  told  them  simply, 
for  eloquence  is  wasted  in  describing  such  feats  of 
the  imagination.  They  are  of  themselves  eloquent. 
And  we  recall  with  what  enthusiasm  Bruno  himself 
recounted  his  journey.  Is  it  not  possible,  however, 
that  when  he  returned  to  earth  ^nd  told  his  jour- 

21 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

neyings  to  merij  he  came  to  perceive,  as  these  men  at 
once  perceived,  that  his  new  vision  was  not  all  made 
of  beauty?  Is  there  not  in  this  infinite  cosmos  that 
which  may  depress  and  even  terrify? 

In  his  "  Garden  of  Epicurus,"  Anatole  France  has 
put  the  two  worlds  side  by  side.  One  has  only  to  do 
this  to  feel  that  Bruno,  who  at  first  held  out  his  hands 
to  the  new  vision,  may  afterwards  have  snatched 
them  back  again  to  shut  it  out. 

"  We  have  some  trouble,"  says  France,  "  in  im- 
agining the  state  of  mind  of  a  man  in  olden  times 
who  firmly  believed  that  the  Earth  was  the  center 
of  the  Universe,  and  that  all  the  stars  turned  round 
it.  He  felt  under  his  feet  damned  souls  writhing 
in  flames,  and  perhaps  he  had  seen  with  his  own  eyes, 
and  smelled  with  his  own  nostrils  the  sulphurous 
fumes  of  Hell  escaping  from  some  fissures  in  the 
rocks.  Lifting  his  head  he  contemplated  the  spheres, 
.  .  .  those  bearing  the  Moon,  Mercury,  Venus  — 
the  one  that  Dante  visited  on  Good  Friday  of  the 
year  1300  —  the  Sun,  Mars,  Jupiter,  Saturn,  then 
the  incorruptible  firmament  from  which  the  stars 
were  suspended  like  lamps.  Beyond,  his  mind's  eye 
discerned  the  Ninth  Heaven  to  which  the  saints  were 
rapt,  the  Primum  Mobile  or  Crystalline^  and  finally 
Empyrean,  dwelling  of  the  blessed,  toward  which, 
he  firmly  hoped,  two  angels  robed  in  white  would 

22 


Dante's  Conception  of  the  Universe 
(From  Hearnshaw's  MedicBval  Contributions  to  Modern  Civilization.^) 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

bear  away,  as  it  were  a  little  child,  his  soul  washed 
in  baptism  and  perfumed  with  the  oil  of  the  last 
sacraments.  In  those  days  God  had  no  other  chil- 
dren than  man,  and  all  his  creation  was  ordered  in  a 
fashion  at  once  childlike  and  poetic  like  an  immense 
cathedral.  Thus  imagined,  the  universe  was  so 
simple  that  it  was  represented  in  its  entirety  with 
its  true  figure  and  motions  in  certain  great  clocks 
run  by  machinery  and  appropriately  painted." 

But  now !  "  We  are  done  with  the  spheres  and 
the  planets  under  which  one  was  born  lucky  or  un- 
lucky, jovial  or  saturnine.  The  solid  vault  of  the 
firmament  is  shattered.  Our  eye  and  our  thought 
plunge  into  infinite  abysses  of  heaven.  Beyond  the 
planets  we  discover  no  longer  the  Empyrean  of  the 
elect  and  of  the  angels,  but  a  hundred  millions  of 
rolling  suns  escorted  by  their  cortege  of  obscure 
satellites  invisible  to  us.  In  the  midst  of  this  in- 
finity of  worlds  our  own  Sun  is  but  a  bubble  of  gas 
and  our  Earth  but  a  fleck  of  mud." 

The  contrast  speaks  for  itself  and  needs  no  com- 
ment. It  is  enough  to  point  out  the  eflFect  it  must 
have  had  upon  the  ethical  and  religious  notions  of 
him  who  first  realized  it.  What  in  such  a  world  are 
we  to  make  of  the  central  episode  of  Christianity? 
Bruno's  imagination  that  had  swept  through  space 
and  sped  by  the  stars  had  found  these  worlds  inhab- 

23 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

ited  by  beings  "  perhaps  better,  perhaps  worse  than 
we  are."  If  there  was  no  evidence  that  these  dwell- 
ers in  distant  solar  systems  were  so  much  better 
than  we  as  to  need  no  saving,  neither  was  there  any 
evidence  that  they  were  so  much  worse  as  to  deserve 
none.  We  were  no  longer  the  only  children  of  God. 
What  then?  Are  we  to  suppose  that  the  drama  of 
Redemption  is  being  enacted  over  and  over  again 
throughout  the  infinity  of  worlds?  Is  the  Son  of 
God  being  sacrificed  over  and  over  again  for  the  sake 
of  His  other  children?  Is  He  at  this  moment  per- 
haps redeeming  with  His  life  the  dwellers  on  some 
star  in  the  night  yonder? 

But  destruction  did  not  stop  here.  Not  only  the 
gentler  aspects  which  Christianity  had  given  to  the 
sterner  religion  of  pagandom  were  threatened.  That 
older  religion  itself,  with  its  well-thought-out  theory 
of  the  relation  between  God  and  man,  must  either  be 
rejected  or  remodeled.  For  Aristotle  as  well  as  for 
Aquinas,  God  and  man  had  formed  the  real  plot  of 
the  universe.  God,  revealing  himself  most  clearly 
in  the  turning  of  the  enclosing  heaven,  set  thereby 
the  rest  of  nature  in  motion  and  stirred  things  down 
to  their  very  center.  So  that  in  the  region  of  earth, 
water,  air  and  fire  there  came  to  be  composed  bodies 
mixed  of  all  these.  They  were  the  living  beings 
we  know,  which,  holding  their  ingredients  in  proper 

24 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

proportion  for  a  while,  fell  apart  again  and  passed 
away. 

These  living  beings  differed  in  power.    As  we  pass 
from  the  vegetable  through  the  animal  to  the  human 
they  show  themselves  increasingly  able  to  control 
the  matter  in  which  and  of  which  they  are.    Highest 
of  all  is  the  human  male.    It  is  for  the  sake  of  pro- 
ducing him  that  the  mechanism  which  fills  the  region 
between  Heaven  and  Earth  exists  and  is  operated. 
One  might  almost  say  that  Nature  is  God's  workshop 
for  producing  man.     But  why  should  God  be  thus 
interested  in  producing  this  particular  kind  of  an- 
imal?   Aristotle's  answer  comes  less  clearly  than  one 
could  wish,  yet  it  comes.     It  is  because  man  differs 
from  the  animals  not  only  in  degree  but  in  kind. 
He  is  not  altogether  animal.     In  his  superior  body 
there  is  contained  a  soul  which  is  not  only  of  God's 
making,  but  of  God's  very  substance.    That  is  why 
man  alone  can  know  God.     It  is  as  though  God 
needed  to  be  known,  recognized,  reflected  as  in  a 
mirror.    As  for  man,  he  is  a  bit  of  divinity  momen- 
tarily estranged  from  his  home  and  dwelling,  but 
with  the  privilege  of  returning  thither  can  he  but 
free  his  soul  from  earthly  and  sensuous  entangle- 
ments and  interest  himself  in  knowing  his  Father 
which  is  in  Heaven. 

And  now  that  Bruno  has  destroyed  this  difference 

25 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

between  Heaven  and  Earth,  has  he  not  destroyed 
along  with  it  the  distinction  between  God  and  man? 
Has  not  his  infinite  homogenous  world  left  man 
a  mere  mite  shivering  on  his  fleck  of  mud  as  it  rolls 
around  its  bubble  of  gas?  Man  is  no  longer  the 
center  of  interest;  he  no  longer  plays  an  important 
part  in  any  thinkable  plot.  "  Man  is  no  more  than 
an  ant  in  the  presence  of  the  infinite,"  cries  Bruno. 
"  A  star  is  no  more  than  a  man." 

We  can  understand  that  Bruno's  awakening,  with 
however  great  an  enthusiasm  it  may  have  been  her- 
alded, can  be  no  pleasant  awakening  for  the  sleeper. 
The  world  of  his  dreams  was  infinitely  fairer  and 
warmer  than  that  reality  to  whose  garish  light  his 
eyes  have  been  opened.  It  cannot  be  expected  that 
the  awakened  should  feel  any  gratitude,  and  he  did 
not.  But  what  is  less  obvious  is  the  matter  of  Bruno's 
own  feeling  as  the  consequences  of  his  new  idea  grad- 
ually unfold  themselves  to  him.  Can  that  first  en- 
thusiasm be  sustained  to  the  end,  or  must  he  too 
shrink  before  the  fuller  vision  of  what  he  has  done? 


If  we  were  to  classify  men  in  terms  of  their  re- 
actions to  new  ideas,  I  think  we  should  all  hit  upon 
these  three  types.  Let  me  call  the  first  the  radical. 
He  is  easy  to  initiate  into  a  new  truth,  bold  to  accept 

26 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

it  at  all  costs,  loses  at  once  all  perspective  and  sees 
in  the  past  only  a  bundle  of  errors  without  beauty 
and  with  no  other  interest  than  to  furnish  matter  for 
jest.  And  then  there  is  the  conservative.  The  hold 
that  the  past  has  on  such  a  mind  is  sometimes  enor- 
mous. He  is  capable  of  clinging  to  it  at  the  expense 
of  all  the  rest  of  his  science  and  experience.  If  it  has 
enthralled  his  heart  and  imagination,  he  falls  into 
a  mood  which  the  Renaissance  called  the  acceptance 
of  "  two-fold  truth."  He  believes  against  all  evi- 
dence. He  believes  as  Tertullian  had  it,  just  because 
the  thing  is  absurd.  He  insists  with  Pascal,  that 
the  heart  has  its  reasons  which  the  reason  cannot 
understand.  He  is  a  creature  of  faiths  and  of  mys- 
ticisms. Finally  there  is  the  philosopher,  the  only 
one  of  the  three  completely  made  for  unhappiness. 
He  gets  no  thrill  from  novelty.  He  has  followed 
human  thought  through  too  many  revolutions  to  ex- 
pect the  most  violent  of  cataclysms  to  change  things 
much.  He  struggles  to  keep  his  perspective  as  he 
would  keep  his  reason,  and  the  views  of  older  hu- 
manity do  not  lose  their  beauty  because  their  expres- 
sion has  been  proved  wrong.  Required  to  readjust 
his  thought  of  yesterday  to  the  new  fact  of  today, 
he  undertakes  the  task  cheerfully  enough  as  part  of 
the  day's  work.  That  is  what  yesterdays,  todays, 
and  if  it  may  be,  tomorrows  are  given  to  him  for. 

27 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

He  measures  his  success  by  the  extent  to  which  he 
can  mold  new  thought  to  the  satisfaction  of  old  de- 
sire, to  old  desire  newly  instructed. 

And  Bruno  —  to  which  of  these  classes  does  he 
belong?  Is  he  the  radical  who  would  light-heart- 
edly take  his  place  on  the  fleck  of  mud  and  watch  it 
roll  around  its  bubble  of  gas,  while  he  laughs  at  his 
neighbors,  who  in  the  face  of  such  a  universe  charm 
themselves  into  a  continued  faith  that  they  are  some- 
how divine  souls  in  whom  a  God  of  Heaven  is  in- 
terested? Or  will  he,  on  the  other  hand,  become  one 
of  those  thus  held  by  the  past?  Will  the  awakener, 
now  himself  fully  awakened,  try  to  snatch  at  the 
fading  dream  and  somehow  manage  to  keep  his  faith 
in  what  he  knows  can't  be  true?  Or  will  he  set 
laboriously  to  work,  as  a  philosopher  should,  to  find 
that  interpretation  of  the  new  facts  which  lies  closest 
to  the  meaning,  though  it  may  differ  from  the  verbal 
expression  of  world-old  desires  and  longings? 

Alas!  if  Bruno  would  but  make  up  his  mind  to 
be  any  one  of  these  three,  the  task  of  his  biographer 
would  be  easy.  But  the  real  Bruno,  the  Bruno  who 
mocked,  who  thought,  who  recanted,  and  who  died, 
was  not  a  type.  He  was  a  man,  and  as  he  was  the 
most  human  of  men,  he  gathered  the  greatest  pos- 
sible number  of  inconsistencies  to  his  heart.  Yes,  he 
was  a  radical  who  mocked  and  jeered.    Yes,  he  was 

28 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

a  philosopher  who  labored  and  thought.  And  yes, 
finally,  he  was  a  mystic  who  could  hold  as  a  splendid 
if  inexplicable  possession  of  his  faith,  all  the  things 
his  reason  showed  to  be  impossible.  I  have  shown 
you  Bruno's  mockery  reflected  in  the  somewhat 
muddy  and  turbid  medium  of  Mocenigo's  denunci- 
ation. I  have  shown  you  Bruno  the  mystic,  kneel- 
ing before  the  Inquisition,  completely  abandoning 
the  great  idea.  It  remains  for  me  to  show  Bruno 
the  philosopher,  Bruno  the  Pantheist,  Bruno  the  un- 
acknowledged inspiration  of  much  that  is  recognized 
as  great  in  Spinoza  and  Leibnitz,  the  acknowledged 
and  highly  honored  forerunner  of  much  we  take  to 
be  greatest  in  the  German  Idealism  that  centers 
about  1800. 

We  left  the  great  idea  at  the  moment,  when,  hav- 
ing pierced  the  heavens,  it  had  come  to  realize  the 
consequences  of  its  act.  The  gentle  meaning  of 
Christ,  the  sterner  pagan  wisdom  of  God  and  man 
had  been  lost  in  an  infinity  that  knew  no  enclosing 
heaven,  in  a  dreary  waste  of  sameness  that  knew  no 
distinction,  not  even  that  between  man  and  God. 
Bruno  the  philosopher  was  not  one  to  let  this  work 
of  scientific  devastation  go  on  unchallenged.  What 
if  there  were  a  God  who  could  dwell  just  as  clearly 
in  a  heaven  that  was  everywhere  as  in  a  Heaven  that 

29 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

was  above?  What  if  man  could  have  an  interest  for 
and  could  serve  this  God,  not  because  he  was  diflFer- 
ent  in  kind  from  the  ant,  but  because  he  was,  or  rather 
in  proportion  as  he  was,  different  in  degree?  Does 
not  the  life  that  quickens  an  animate  thing  pervade 
that  thing?  Is  it  not  the  same  life  which  in  me 
beckons  with  my  finger,  beats  with  my  heart,  thinks 
with  my  brain?  What  then  if  this  infinite  world 
of  ours  were  one  great  living  thing  made  up  of 
other  living  things,  as  our  body  is  made  up  of  finger, 
and  heart,  and  brain,  each  of  which  in  doing  its  own 
work  does  consciously  or  unconsciously  the  work  of 
the  whole?  "  Natura  est  Deus  in  rebus."  This  is 
one  of  the  phrases  Bruno  found  in  trying  to  express 
his  philosophy.  Nature  is  God  in  things,  or  let  us 
put  it  —  God  is  the  lifej  suns  and  planets,  men  and 
ants,  falling  rain  and  mounting  mist  are  but  the  ges- 
tures of  this  life.  Each  thinks  it  does  what  it  does 
for  its  own  sake,  but  those  who  think  clearest  realize 
that  the  joy  of  their  doing  as  well  as  the  solace  of 
their  undoing  is  the  part  they  play  in  working  out 
the  ideal  of  the  whole.  "  And  He  lives  in  me  as  I 
live  in  my  hand "  —  the  phrase  is  Von  Hof- 
mannsthaPs,  the  thought  is  Bruno's,  and  it  is  the 
whole  thought  of  Bruno  the  Pantheist. 

The  end  of  this  life  is  told  in  a  letter  written  by 

30 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

one  Gaspard  Schopp  (  a  converted  Lutheran)  to  his 
friend  Rittershausen,  rector  of  the  University  of 
Altdorf: 

"  If  I  write  to  you  now,  it  is  because  this  very 
day  Giordano  Bruno  was  publicly  burned  for  heresy 
in  the  Field  of  Flowers  in  front  of  the  theater  of 
Pompey.  ...  If  you  were  in  Rome,  you  would  learn 
from  each  and  every  Italian  that  a  Lutheran  was 
burned,  and  so  you  would  be  not  a  little  strengthened 
in  your  opinion  of  our  savage  hatred.  But  you  must 
know,  my  Rittershausen,  that  our  Italians  do  not 
draw  a  sharp  line  between  heretics  and  heretics,  nor 
do  they  know  fine  distinctions,  but  if  any  one  is  a 
heretic  they  take  him  for  a  Lutheran,  in  which  sim- 
plicity I  pray  that  God  may  continue  them.  .  .  . 

"  Now  Bruno  was  that  Nolan  ...  a  professed 
Dominican  who  some  twenty-three  years  agone  be- 
gan to  doubt  of  Transubstantiation  .  .  .  then 
forthright  to  deny  it,  and  likewise  the  virginity  of 
the  Blessed  Mary.  He  migrated  to  Geneva,  .  .  . 
whence,  not  approving  himself  altogether  sound  in 
his  Calvinism  (than  which,  nevertheless,  nothing 
leads  straighter  to  atheism),  he  was  driven  to  Lyons, 
whence  to  Toulouse,  from  whence  he  passed  on  to 
Paris,  where  he  was  a  professor,  but  extraordinarius, 
as  he  found  that  the  professor  ordinarius  was  obliged 
to  attend  Mass.  Thence  to  London,  where  he  pub- 

31 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

lished  a  little  book  called  the  '  Beast  Triumphant,' 
meaning  thereby  the  Pope,  whom  your  party  is  wont 
to  honor  with  the  name  of  beast/  From  here  to 
Wittenberg,  where,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  he  lec- 
tured publicly  for  two  years.  Having  gone  on  to 
Prague,  he  published  there  the  works,  '  On  the 
Boundless,'  ^  On  the  Innumerable  Worlds,'  and  yet 
one  other,  '  On  the  Shadows  of  Ideas,'  in  which  he 
taught  horrible  and  moreover  most  absurd  things, 
as  that  there  are  innumerable  worlds,  that  the  soul 
passes  from  one  body  into  another,  .  .  .  that  magic 
is  a  good  thing  and  permissible,  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
nothing  but  the  soul  of  the  world,  and  that  this  was 
what  Moses  meant  when  he  wrote,  ^  The  spirit  of 
God  moved  on  the  face  of  the  waters,'  that  the  world 
is  eternal.  ...  In  a  word,  whatever  is  asserted  by 
the  Pagan  philosophers,  whatever  by  our  older  or 
newer  heretics  he  (Bruno)  maintained. 

"  From  Prague  he  went  on  to  Brunswick  and 
Helmstadt,  and  there  for  a  time  is  said  to  have 
taught.  Then  to  Frankfurt  for  the  publishing  of 
certain  books,  and  later  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
Inquisition  at  Venice,  whence  when  they  had  had 
enough  of  him,  he  was  sent  to  Rome.  Frequently 
examined  by  the  Holy  Office  ...  of  the  Inqui- 

^  A  curious  ignorance  of  the  content  of  the  "  Spaccio!  " 
There  are  numerous  other  faults  of  detail  in  this  account, 

32 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

sition,  convicted  by  the  highest  theologians,  he  now 
besought  eighty  days  that  he  might  consider,  now 
promised  recantation,  now  defended  his  point  anew, 
now  obtained  another  eighty  days  5  but  was  really 
doing  nothing  but  make  a  fool  of  the  Pontiff  and  the 
Inquisition. 

"  So  that,  nearly  eight  years  after  he  had  come  be- 
fore the  Inquisition  here,  on  the  ninth  of  February 
in  the  Palace  of  the  Grand  Inquisitor,  there  being 
present  the  Most  Illustrious  Cardinals  of  the  Holy 
OfSce  of  the  Inquisition,  .  .  .  theologians  of  coun- 
sel, and  the  secular  magistrate,  governor  of  the  city, 
Bruno  was  brought  in,  and  on  bended  knees  heard 
sentence  pronounced  against  him.  And  it  was  in 
this  way:  the  story  of  his  life  was  told,  of  his  studies 
and  teachings,  and  with  what  diligence  and  fraternal 
admonishment  the  Inquisition  had  sought  to  effect 
his  conversion,  and  what  obduracy  and  impiety  he 
had  shown.  Then  they  defrocked  him,  as  we  say, 
and  straightway  excommunicated  him  and  handed 
him  over  to  the  secular  arm  to  be  punished,  asking 
that  this  be  done  with  clemency  and  without  the 
shedding  of  blood. 

"  While  this  was  passing  he  answered  nothing, 
except  this  word:  '  In  greater  fear,  perhaps,  do  you 
impose  sentence  upon  me  than  I  do  receive  it.'  So, 
taken  away  to  prison  by  the  governor's  lictors,  he  was 

33 


GIORDANO   BRUNO 

allowed  a  fortnight  in  case  he  should  wish  to  recant 
his  errors  J  but  in  vain.  Today  he  was  led  to  the 
stake.  When  the  image  of  our  Saviour  on  the  Cross 
was  shown  to  him  as  he  was  about  to  die,  he  turned 
away  his  head  and  sullenly  rejected  it.  In  great 
misery  he  thus  died,  and  is  gone,  I  think,  to  tell  in 
those  other  worlds  of  his  imagining  after  what  man- 
ner the  men  of  Rome  are  wont  to  treat  impious 
blasphemers.  .  .  ." 

Surely,  he  came  to  that  other  world  of  his  imagin- 
ing. It  is  our  world  and  he  dwells  among  us.  Little 
does  he  remember  of  the  men  of  Rome,  of  their 
Illustrious  Lordships  of  Venice,  of  all  the  toil  and 
travail  of  that  old  life  of  his  —  hardly  enough  to 
fill  an  idle  hour  in  the  telling.  But  we  know  him 
easily  for  the  unchanged  soul  he  was.  He  is  that 
one  who  came  to  us  of  a  day  and  opened  our  eyes  to 
new  and  troubling  visions.  "  Now  you  are  free," 
he  said,  "  be  glad!  "  He  is  that  same  one  who  stole 
back  another  day  and  whispered,  "  But  you  are 
afraid!  Remember  your  Father's  House,  how  safe 
it  was  and  warm."  He  may  be  there  to  close  the 
eyes  that  have  seen  enough,  with  what  counsel  then, 
who  can  tell?  But  once  he  was  fond  of  saying, 
"  Not  only  he  who  wins  deserves  the  laurels 5  but 
also  he  who  dies  no  coward." 

34 


II 


BENEDICT    DE  SPINOZA 

1632-1677 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

^^  All  things  excellent  are  as  difficult  as  they  are 
rare."  These  words  which  bring  to  a  close  Spinoza's 
masterpiece,  "  Ethics,  after  the  manner  of  Geom- 
etry," sum  up  the  experience  of  a  life  as  rare  as  it 
was  difficult. 

But  then,  the  things  that  make  life  difficult  are  so 
much  a  question  of  the  nature  that  accepts  or  invites 
them !  We  may  be  sure  that  few,  brought  to  the  lap 
of  Lachesis,  would  have  the  courage  to  pick  there- 
from Spinoza's  lot.  To  be  born  of  exiled  Jews,  to 
be  cast  off  by  family  and  race  as  an  offender  against 
holy  traditions,  to  live  then  in  loneliness  among 
Christians  whose  faith  one  does  not  accept,  to  die  by 
inches  at  the  age  of  forty-five,  —  even  as  lives  go 
this  would  hardly  be  called  an  easy  one.  How  se- 
riously then  must  we  take  the  sustaining  power  of 
a  philosophy  which  enabled  Spinoza,  partly  accept- 
ing, partly  inviting  his  destiny,  to  lend  it  an  aspect 
of  calm  beauty  that  touches  our  wonder! 

One  is  tempted  to  recall  the  unhappy  Bruno;  with- 
out, tossed  and  hunted;  within,  torn  by  a  conflict 
between  a  new  science  at  once  grand  and  desolate, 

37 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

and  a  memory  of  things  lovable  but  untrue.  In  him 
a  lofty  philosophy  was  to  have  quieted  this  struggle 
and  consoled  this  isolation  but  did  not,  unless  indeed 
it  did  at  that  last  moment  when  he  stood  at  his  stake 
in  the  Field  of  Flowers. 

There  is  much  likeness  but  an  all-important  dif- 
ference between  Bruno  and  Spinoza,  whose  names  a 
curious  fate  linked  together  first  in  general  condem- 
nation, then  in  general  praise.  The  two  were  alike 
in  this,  that  if  anything  more  lonely  can  be  conceived 
than  the  fugitive  existence  of  Bruno,  it  is  the  monlc- 
like  reclusion  of  Spinoza  j  if  anything  more  desolate 
than  the  infinite  wind-swept  universe  of  Bruno,  it 
is  this  same  universe  bereft  of  the  quivering  life  and 
all-inspiring  purpose  that  Bruno  found  in  it,  this 
world  left  on  our  hands  a  rolling  mechanism  fatal 
and  purposeless.  But  the  difference  is  profound. 
The  philosophy,  yes,  one  may  boldly  say  the  religion 
of  Spinoza,  sustained  him  from  day  to  day,  from 
hour  to  hour.  Bruno's  was  rather  the  poet's  vision, 
vivid  enough  while  it  lasted,  but  dispelled  by  the 
shock  of  reality  to  return  only  at  such  moments  as 
that  in  which  his  life  went  out.  Is  it  in  the  power  of 
a  thought,  is  it  in  the  temperament  of  a  man  that  this 
difference  lies  explained? 


38 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

Spinoza's  thought,  whatever  its  worth,  owned  a 
distinguished  lineage.  When  in  1658  he  was  ex- 
communicated by  the  Jews  at  Amsterdam,  he  turned 
with  eager  curiosity  to  the  learning  if  not  to  the 
faith  of  the  Christians.  In  particular  the  Dutch 
physician,  Francis  Van  den  Ende,  himself  a  free- 
thinker, became  his  teacher  and  friend.  From  him 
Spinoza  acquired  his  knowledge  of  Latin  and  Ger- 
man, by  him  was  initiated  into  the  sciences  and  intro- 
duced to  the  works  of  Giordano  Bruno  and  of  one 
other  destined  to  play  a  determining  part  in  his 
thought,  Rene  Descartes  —  "  the  father  of  modern 
philosophy  "  as  he  is  sometimes  called. 

Descartes,  whose  life  overlaps  that  of  Bruno  at 
the  one  end  and  of  Spinoza  at  the  other,  is  founder 
of  the  school  of  thought  the  historian  calls  Ration- 
alistic. Now  a  rationalist  is  obviously  enough  one 
who  is  bent  on  following  his  reason,  but  reason  as 
opposed  to  what?  We  think  first  of  reason  as  op- 
posed to  authority  and  revelation  5  but  although 
rationalism  came  inevitably  to  discard  these  sources 
of  belief  —  had  already  discarded  them  in  the 
thought  of  our  very  Spinoza  —  the  father  of  ra- 
tionalism had  left  some  room  for  bothj  partly  be- 
cause it  might  furnish  a  convenient  refuge  if  the 
official  church  with  which  he  desired  to  live  in  com- 
fortable relation  should  press  himj  partly  because 

39 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

Descartes  was  in  one  or  two  respects  less  of  a 
rationalist  than  his  school. 

On  the  other  hand  the  master  was  emphatic 
enough  on  the  distinction  between  the  reason  and  the 
senses.  It  might  seem  to  us  moderns  that  the  old 
saying  "  seeing  is  believing,"  with  its  implied  pro- 
hibition against  believing  aught  that  might  not  be 
seen,  erred,  if  at  all,  from  a  very  excess  of  reasonable- 
ness. To  Descartes,  seeing  with  the  body's  eye  was 
still  but  flimsy  evidence.  This  organ  had  too  often 
deceived  him  to  be  implicitly  trusted,  and  to  back 
its  testimony  with  that  of  the  other  senses,  —  touch, 
taste,  smell,  hearing  —  was  but  to  multiply  unreliable 
witnesses.  Their  combined  voices  might  give  a  cer- 
tain presumption  in  favor  of  their  opinion  but  never 
an  assurance  amounting  to  certainty.  Not  indeed 
with  the  eye  of  the  body  but  with  the  eye  of  the 
mind  could  we  see  truth  in  its  nakedness.  But  what 
is  this  organ,  this  eye  of  the  mind,  and  who  is  to 
teach  us  to  use  it?  The  mathematicians,  Descartes 
replies,  have  long  possessed  it  and  long  used  it.  It  is 
to  them  we  must  turn  for  instruction. 

If  we  do  —  if  we  turn  to  Euclid,  say  —  we  find 
that  the  whole  complex  and  difficult  body  of  truth 
that  we  call  geometery  is  made  to  follow  from  a  few 
simple  truths  so  certain  that  we  call  them  self-evi- 
dent.    Why  should  not  all  truths  be  susceptible  of 

40 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

the  same  kind  of  proof?  Why  should  we  not  be 
able  to  find  an  axiom  of  axioms  whose  certainty  was 
no  mere  matter  of  observation,  and  why,  if  we  find 
it,  should  we  not  be  able  to  draw  from  it  all  pos- 
sible truth,  as  we  deduce  the  theorems  of  geometry 
from  its  axioms? 

It  was  this  idea  that  Descartes  followed  and  it 
was  this  idea  that  Spinoza  accepted  at  his  hands:  To 
construct  a  theory  of  life  that  should  be  no  mere 
summing  up  of  various  peoples'  experiences,  but 
should,  after  the  manner  of  geometry,  draw  from 
an  indubitable  source  the  certainties  of  morals  and 
religion  no  less  than  the  truths  of  science. 

But  when  we  learn  what  is  this  axiom  of  axioms 
that  Spinoza  received  from  Descartes  and  made  the 
fountain  head  of  all  truth,  we  find  ourselves  specta- 
tors of  one  of  those  curious  tricks  of  the  human  mind 
that  make  its  history  always  diverting.  It  may  well 
seem  to  us  as  though  rationalism  were  not  so  much 
standing  on  its  reason  as  standing  on  its  head.  For 
that  axiom  which  is  to  be  the  simplest  and  most  cer- 
tain of  all  truths,  more  elementary  than  that  2  and  2 
make  4,  or  that  a  straight  line  is  the  shortest  distance 
between  two  points,  —  that  axiom  is  the  very  propo- 
sition before  which  most  of  us  find  our  reason  stag- 
gering, our  faith  panting  and  breathless.  That  ax- 
iom consists  of  two  words:  "  God  is.^^ 

41 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

I  do  not  propose  to  develop  here  the  tortured 
processes  of  reasoning  by  which  the  rationalists  were 
wont  to  convince  themselves  that  what  God  is  and 
that  He  is,  were  no  mere  questions  of  experience.  It 
seemed  to  them  as  though  the  very  meaning  of  God 
assured  his  existence.  But  I  question  if  in  the  end 
any  of  our  day  would  be  strongly  convinced  by  their 
argument  about  it.  The  whole  matter  is  of  the  less 
importance  that  Spinoza's  results  in  the  domain  of 
ethics  are  not  so  dependent  on  his  method  but  that 
one  may  readily  reword  the  problem  of  1 7th  century 
rationalism  in  the  language  of  modern  science. 

Nevertheless  it  is  in  the  first  instance  devotion  to 
the  method  he  had  received  from  Descartes  that  re- 
quires Spinoza  to  differ  with  his  master  on  two  points 
of  the  greatest  importance  to  the  sequel.  This  God, 
this  "  all-perfect  being "  as  the  rationalists  com- 
monly defined  Him,  plays  a  rather  capricious  part 
in  Descartes'  thinking.  He  is  represented  as  the  Cre- 
ator of  the  physical  universe,  and  in  this  act  of  cre- 
ation as  quite  arbitrarily  choosing  this  sort  of  a  world 
rather  than  another,  a  world  working  out  a  destiny 
that  is  not  chosen  because  it  is  good  but  is  good  be- 
cause it  is  chosen  of  God,  For  the  rest,  what  this 
end  may  be  is  beyond  the  ken  of  human  reason,  and 
after  having  done  homage  to  the  divine  purpose 
Descartes  feels  at  liberty  to  confine  his  attention  to 

42 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

studying  the  mechanism  and  reconstructing  the  his- 
tory of  nature  as  we  find  it. 

Here  one  can  imagine  Spinoza  exclaiming  "  What ! 
You  would  follow  the  guidance  of  the  geometers, 
deducing  all  truth  from  the  axiom  of  God's  exist- 
ence, and  you  leave  it  to  God  to  decide  what  shall 
and  what  shall  not  follow  from  his  nature!  "  Do 
then  the  axioms  of  geometry  select  the  theorems 
they  shall  establish,  accepting  some  and  rejecting 
others  for  a  motive  whether  good  or  bad?  No,  says 
Spinoza,  God  has  neither  intellect  nor  will :  facts  and 
laws  follow  from  His  nature  as  the  properties  of  a 
triangle  from  its  definition. 

The  other  element  of  caprice  in  Descartes'  final 
picture  of  the  world  is  just  man.  He  alone  of  all 
things  occupying  a  place  in  God's  universe  is  not 
subjected  to  mechanical  law.  But  how,  Spinoza  may 
well  ask,  can  we  conceive  ourselves  to  be  following 
the  lead  of  mathematicians  if  we  violate  the  first 
principles  of  their  science?  Does  the  geometry  of 
a  triangle  depend  upon  the  place  in  which  the  tri- 
angle finds  itself?  How  then  can  the  laws  of  the 
behavior  of  bodies  depend  upon  these  bodies  being 
in  or  out  of  the  human  machine?  The  human  body 
must  be  determined  by  the  same  laws  of  physics  that 
govern  all  extended  things.  "  And  as  for  the  mind," 
Spinoza  adds,  "  the  order  and  connection  of  its  ideas 

43 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

are  parallel  to  the   order  and  connection  of  the 
bodily  states." 

"  There  is,"  he  concludes,  "  in  mind  no  absolute 
or  free  willj  but  the  mind  is  determined  to  this  or 
that  volition  by  a  cause  which  has  itself  been  deter- 
mined by  another  cause,  this  again  by  another  and 
so  on  in  injinitum,^^ 

That  the  world  reflects  God's  choice,  that  it  might 
to  a  perfect  understanding  reveal  God's  purpose, 
that  in  it  the  human  being  is  free  in  body  or  mindj 
these  are  aspects  of  irrationality  which  Spinoza  is 
eager  to  remove  from  the  fair  creation  of  reason. 
They  represent  to  him  last  vestiges  of  vulgar 
thought  of  which  the  master  had  after  all  been  un- 
able to  rid  himself.  Spinoza  is  at  his  best  in  expos- 
ing the  psychology  of  the  multitude  with  its  quaint 
illusions  respecting  God  and  man.  In  the  famous 
appendix  to  the  first  book  of  the  Ethics  he  summons 
these  prejudices  as  he  calls  them  before  the  bar  of 
reason:  "They  all,"  he  lays  it  down,  "depend  on 
just  this  onej  that  men  commonly  suppose  all  things 
in  nature  to  act  as  they  themselves  do  with  a  view  to 
some  end,  nay,  even  assume  that  God  himself  di- 
rects all  things  to  some  definite  end,  saying  that  God 
has  made  all  things  for  man,  and  man  that  he  might 
worship  God.    I  shall  therefore  consider  this  preju- 

44 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

dice.  I  shall  inquire  in  the  first  place  why  most 
persons  assent  to  it  and  all  are  by  nature  so  prone 
to  embrace  it.  In  the  second  place  I  shall  show  that 
it  is  false  5  and  lastly  I  shall  show  how  there  have 
sprung  from  it  prejudices  respecting  good  and  evil, 
merit  and  sin,  praise  and  blame,  beauty  and  ugliness, 
and  other  things  of  the  sort.  .  .  . 

"  It  will  here  suffice  to  assume  certain  facts  all 
must  admit,  namely,  that  all  men  are  born  ignorant 
of  the  causes  of  things,  and  that  all  men  have,  and 
are  conscious  of  having,  an  impulse  to  seek  their  own 
advantage.  From  this  it  follows  first  that  men  think 
themselves  free  for  the  reason  that  they  are  con- 
scious of  their  volitions  and  desires,  and,  being  ig- 
norant of  the  causes  by  which  they  are  led  to  will 
and  desire,  they  do  not  so  much  as  dream  of  these. 
It  follows  second  that  men  do  everything  with  some 
purpose  in  view;  that  is,  with  a  view  to  the  advantage 
they  seek.  Hence  it  is  they  always  desire  to  know 
the  motives  of  action,  and  when  they  have  learned 
these,  are  satisfied." 

Against  this  background  Spinoza  sketches  in  with 
a  few  quick,  vigorous  strokes  what  we  may  call  his 
psychology  of  popular  religion. 

"  Since  men  find  in  themselves,"  he  writes,  "  and 
external  to  themselves,  many  things  which  are  of  no 
small  assistance  in  obtaining  what  is  to  their  advan- 

45 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

tage,  as  for  example,  the  eyes  for  seeing,  the  teeth 
for  chewing,  plants  and  animals  for  food,  the  sun 
for  giving  light,  and  so  on,  this  has  led  them  to  re- 
gard all  things  in  nature  as  means  to  their  advantage. 
And  knowing  these  means  to  have  been  discovered, 
not  provided  by  themselves,  they  have  made  this  a 
reason  for  believing  that  there  is  some  one  else  who 
has  provided  them  for  their  use.  But  as  they  had 
never  had  any  information  concerning  the  character 
of  this  being,  they  had  to  judge  it  from  their  own. 
Hence,  they  maintained  that  the  gods  direct  all 
things  with  a  view  to  man's  advantage,  to  lay  men 
under  obligation  to  themselves,  and  to  be  held  in 
the  highest  honor;  whence  it  has  come  to  pass  that 
each  one  has  thought  out  for  himself,  according  to 
his  disposition,  a  different  way  of  worshipping  God, 
that  God  might  love  him  above  others,  and  direct 
all  nature  to  the  service  of  his  .  .  .  desire.  But 
while  they  sought  to  show  that  nature  does  nothing 
uselessly  (in  other  words  nothing  that  is  not  to  man's 
advantage)  they  seem  to  have  shown  only  that  na- 
ture and  gods  and  men  are  all  equally  mad." 

And  Spinoza  seizes  the  opportunity  to  pay  tribute 
to  a  respectable,  well-worn  theology: 

"  Just  see  how  far  the  thing  has  been  carried! 
Among  all  useful  things  in  nature  they  could  not 
help  finding  a  few  harmful  things,  as  tempests, 

46 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

earthquakes,  diseases,  etc.  They  maintained  that 
these  occurred  because  the  gods  were  angry  on  ac- 
count of  injuries  done  them  by  men  or  on  account  of 
faults  committed  in  their  worship.  And  although 
experience  daily  contradicted  this  and  showed  by  an 
infinity  of  instances  that  good  and  evil  fall  to  the  lot 
of  the  pious  and  of  the  impious  indifferently,  that 
did  not  make  them  abandon  their  inveterate  preju- 
dice. They  found  it  easier  to  class  these  facts  with 
other  unknown  things  whose  use  they  could  not 
name  and  thus  to  retain  their  present  and  innate  con- 
dition of  ignorance,  than  to  destroy  the  whole  fabric 
of  their  reasoning  and  think  out  a  new  one.  Hence 
they  assumed  that  the  judgment  of  the  gods  very  far 
surpasses  man's  power  of  comprehension."  This 
in  itself,  Spinoza  concludes,  would  have  been  suffi- 
cient to  hide  the  truth  forever  from  mankind  had  not 
science,  which  looks  into  the  why  and  not  the  where- 
fore of  things,  shown  men  a  different  standard  of 
truth. 

The  second  paragraph  in  which  he  fulfils  his 
promise  to  show  the  folly  of  the  popular  belief  in  a 
providence  is  pervaded  by  a  dry  humor: 

"  I  must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  the  adherents 
of  this  doctrine  who  have  chosen  to  display  their  in- 
genuity in  assigning  final  causes  to  things,  have  em- 
ployed in  support  of  their  doctrine  a  new  form  of 

47 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

argument,  namely,  a  reductio,  not  ad  absurdum, 
but  ad  ignorantiamj  which  shows  that  there  was  no 
other  way  to  set  about  proving  this  doctrine.  If,  for 
example,  a  stone  has  fallen  from  a  roof  upon  some- 
one's head  and  has  killed  him,  they  will  prove  as 
follows:  If  it  did  not  fall  in  accordance  with  God's 
will  for  this  purpose,  how  could  there  have  been  a 
chance  concurrence  of  so  many  circumstances?  .  .  . 
Perhaps  you  will  answer,  It  happened  because  the 
wind  blew  and  the  man  had  an  errand  there.  But 
they  will  insist,  Why  did  the  wind  blow  at  that 
time?  and  why  had  that  man  an  errand  that  way  at 
just  that  time?  If  you  answer  again.  The  wind  rose 
at  that  time  because  on  the  day  before,  while  the 
weather  was  still  calm,  the  sea  began  to  be  rough  and 
the  man  had  an  invitation  from  a  friend,  they  will 
again  insist,  since  one  may  ask  no  end  of  questions, 
But  why  was  the  sea  rough?  and  why  was  the  man 
invited  at  that  time?  And  so  they  will  keep  on 
asking  the  causes  of  causes  until  you  take  refuge  in 
the  will  of  God,  that  asylum  of  ignorance.  ... 
Hence  it  happens  that  he  who  seeks  for  the  true 
causes  of  miracles  and  endeavors  like  a  scholar  to 
comprehend  things  in  nature,  and  not  like  a  fool 
to  wonder  at  them,  is  everywhere  regarded  and  pro- 
claimed an  heretic  and  an  impious  man  by  those 
whom  the  multitude  reverence  as  interpreters  of 

48 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

nature  and  the  gods.    But  this  I  leave  and  pass  on  to 
the  third  point  I  promised  to  treat  here." 

The  treatment  of  this  third  point,  our  perverted 
notions  of  good  and  evil,  beauty  and  ugliness,  etc., 
may  readily  be  imagined.  "  Since  men  as  we  have 
just  said  believe  that  everything  was  made  for  their 
sake,  they  call  the  nature  of  a  thing  good  or  bad, 
sound  or  corrupt,  according  as  it  affects  them?^  And 
from  this  springs  the  world-old  froblem  of  evil 
as  it  is  called.  "  Many  are  accustomed  to  reason 
as  follows:  If  everything  has  followed  from  the 
necessity  of  God's  most  perfect  nature,  whence  so 
many  imperfections  in  nature,  the  stinking  rottenness 
of  things,  their  disgusting  ugliness,  confusion,  evil, 
sin  and  so  forth?  "  But  those  who  ask  thus  are 
merely  confused,  for  "  the  perfection  of  things  is 
to  be  determined  solely  from  their  nature  and  power, 
nor  are  things  more  or  less  perfect  because  they 
please  or  displease  men's  senses,  are  helpful  or 
harmful  to  man's  nature." 

Were  we  to  lay  aside  our  Spinoza  at  this  point, 
we  should  be  inclined  to  agree  with  the  judgment  of 
most  of  his  contemporaries  and  of  his  successors  for 
more  than  a  century,  that  although  the  name  of  God 
is  constantly  on  his  lips  his  thought  makes  the  name 
an  empty  one,  that  he  is  at  bottom  an  atheist.    Fur- 

49 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

thermore  we  should  fail  to  see  how  he  could  have 
called  his  great  work  an  "  ethics,"  inasmuch  as  it  is 
hardly  to  be  understood  how  in  a  world  where  every 
act  of  the  body  is  necessitated  by  eternal  laws  of 
physics,  every  thought  of  the  mind  by  equally  rigid 
laws  of  psychology,  there  could  be  such  a  thing  as 
a  good  or  bad  act,  a  good  or  bad  thought.  Where 
there  is  no  freedom,  how  can  there  be  right  and 
wrong,  worth  and  unworthiness? 

And  yet  we  shall  find  that  into  this  hard  inhos- 
pitable world-picture,  Spinoza  has  set  a  theory  of 
life  that  not  only  recognizes  and  defines  the  dif- 
ference between  the  good  and  the  bad,  but  culminates 
in  a  phrase  whose  religious  feeling  is  unmistakable: 
Virtue  is  knowledge  j  the  only  knowledge  is  to 
know  Godj  to  know  God  is  to  love  him.  If  one 
grasp  this  part  of  his  philosophy,  one  will  under- 
stand how  it  came  about  that  him  whom  the  eight- 
eenth century  called  atheist,  the  nineteenth  remem- 
bered as  a  gottrunkener  Mensch  —  a  God-intox- 
icated man. 

It  would  be  too  much  to  attempt  to  follow  the 
technical  expression  that  Spinoza  gives  to  his 
thought.  Every  word  is  heavy  with  the  burden  of 
long  centuries  of  scholasticism.  But  I  think  it  is 
not  impossible  to  put  oneself  in  possession  of  one 


SO 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

principal  idea  on  which  the  rest  follows,  not  without 
jolt,  yet  with  a  fair  degree  of  ease. 

Let  us  then  put  the  problem  clearly  before  us. 
Suppose  Nature,  including  the  incident  of  human 
life,  were  one  great  machine  without  purpose  in  the 
whole,  without  freedom  in  the  detail,  how  would  it 
be  possible  to  regard  any  part  of  nature,  a  given  man 
for  example,  as  either  good  or  bad?  If  this  man 
lives  as  he  must,  what  use,  nay  what  meaning  in 
advising  him  how  he  ought  to  live? 

Spinoza's  answer  involves  this  fundamental  point. 
There  are  some  machines  that  exist  for  a  purpose. 
We  may,  if  we  choose,  regard  it  as  the  nature  of  such 
a  machine  to  accomplish  this  purpose.  In  proportion 
as  it  accomplishes  it  we  call  it  good  5  in  proportion 
as  it  fails  we  call  it  bad.  Thus  a  clock  is  mechanical 
enough,  a  matter  of  cogwheels  and  springs,  but 
that  is  not  the  nature  of  a  clock,  for  we  can  recog- 
nize such  an  implement  without  knowing  anything 
about  these  same  cogwheels  and  springs,  if  only 
we  know  that  the  thing  keeps  time.  As  it  keeps 
accurate  time  we  call  it  a  good  clock,  and  as  it  loses 
or  gains  we  call  it  a  bad  one.  It  is  true  that  we 
do  not  exactly  blame  the  clock  if  it  goes  wrongs 
we  rather  blame  the  clock-maker.  But  there  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  cease  to  blame  the  clock-maker, 
were  we  to  convince  ourselves  that  he  too  was  a 

SI 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

mechanism,  and  owed  his  lack  of  skill  to  the  physical 
constitution  of  hands  and  brain.  In  a  word,  a  mech- 
anism whose  nature  is  to  perform  a  certain  function 
may  nevertheless  be  a  good  or  a  bad  mechanism  for 
the  purpose,  and  is  praiseworthy  or  blameworthy  in 
so  far  as  it  performs  its  function  well  or  ill. 

It  is  only  then  a  mechanism  that  reveals  in  its  be- 
havior the  pursuit  of  a  purpose  that  may  be  regarded 
as  good  or  bad.  So  too  it  is  only  such  a  mechanism 
that  may  be  regarded  as  more  or  less  free,  more  or 
less  bound.  This  notion  of  freedom  and  bondage  that 
Spinoza  here  introduces,  turns  on  a  distinction  which 
all  of  us  make  without  realizing  the  difficulty  of 
defining  what  we  mean  by  it.  It  is  the  distinction 
between  a  being  and  its  environment.  With  respect 
to  each  thing  Spinoza  divides  nature  into  two  parts: 
one  part  he  calls  the  inner  nature  of  the  things  the 
other,  nature  external  to  it.  Now  in  one  use  of  the 
term  "  nature  "  this  distinction  seems  to  be  an  im- 
possible one  5  for  in  so  far  as  I  regard  a  man^s  body 
as  composed  of  atoms  obeying  the  laws  of  mechanics, 
everything  that  takes  place  among  these  atoms  is  the 
resultant  of  the  relation  of  these  atoms  to  all  others 
in  the  universe.  "  It  is  impossible,"  Spinoza  him- 
self sees  it  —  "  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  not  to  be 
a  part  of  nature  and  not  to  follow  its  general  order." 

But  suppose  in  reference  to  a  given  kind  of  body 

52 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

we  neglect  all  those  diflFerences  in  behavior  that 
make  neither  for  nor  against  the  accomplishment  of 
a  purpose  we  have  ascribed  to  it.  Will  not  the  grain 
of  corn  spring  up  in  this  field  or  in  that?  Will  not 
the  human  being  pass  through  the  cycle  of  life  in 
this  age  and  country,  or  in  that?  And  in  so  far  as 
he  carries  out  the  purposes  of  his  being  in  various 
surroundings,  whatever  difference  of  detail  in  his 
way  of  doing  it,  may  we  not  say  that  man  has  a 
nature  of  his  own  independent  of  his  environment? 
Finally  is  not  this  just  what  we  mean  by  being  free: 
the  ability  to  carry  out  one's  end  independently  of 
the  circumstances  in  which  one  is  placed?  On  the 
other  hand  is  not  an  inability  to  win  out  under  all 
circumstances  just  what  we  mean  by  bondage? 

There  is  then  no  reason  why  we  should  not  recog- 
nize freedom  and  bondage,  good  and  evil,  in  certain 
farts  of  a  world  that  atom  by  atom  is  mechanical 
and  purposeless  in  its  constitution. 

Having  presented  this  central  idea,  we  may  now 
follow  with  greater  ease  Spinoza's  account  of  the 
degree  of  freedom  of  which  a  man  is  capable,  of  the 
use  of  this  freedom  which  we  should  call  good,  and 
finally  of  the  rewards  of  a  "  good  life." 

Here  we  seem  to  have  asked  three  questions  be- 
cause we  have  followed  the  general  ideas  on  the  sub- 

53 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

ject.  To  these  questions,  however,  Spinoza  would 
return  a  single  answer.  To  be  good,  to  be  free,  to 
be  blessed  mean  one  and  the  same  thing.  It  is  a 
divine  thought,  if  only  it  can  be  made  to  appear. 

First  then  let  us  note  that  we  habitually  distin- 
guish the  forms  of  life  as  higher  and  lower  5  the 
grain  of  corn  is  lower  than  the  bee,  the  bee  is  lower 
than  the  man.  If  we  ask  ourselves  what  we  mean 
by  this  distinction,  we  shall  find  I  think  that  we  refer 
to  the  difference  of  the  degree  to  which  these  forms 
are  capable  of  carrying  out  a  given  purpose  what- 
ever the  environment.  The  biologist  would  say  they 
differ  in  adaptability.  Take  merely  the  common 
end  of  self-preservation:  the  grain  of  corn  is  lost  if 
it  fall  on  rocky  ground  or  among  the  thorns.  It  can 
do  nothing  to  save  itself.  To  the  bee  these  circum- 
stances are  indifferent,  yet  it  in  turn  would  succumb 
to  a  blight  of  the  flowers.  To  the  man,  this  would 
be  but  a  small  matter  and  we  enjoy  losing  ourselves 
in  admiration  of  the  ingenuity  with  which  he  man- 
ages to  subsist  under  the  most  unusual  and  threat- 
ening conditions.  In  a  word,  the  higher  the  form 
of  life,  the  greater  the  freedom  from  environment  5 
the  lower,  the  greater  the  bondage  to  circumstance. 

What  now  in  the  nature  of  a  thing  determines 
its  degree  of  freedom?  Spinoza  studies  the  question 
only  within  the  domain  of  human  life.    Within  this 

54 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

domain  his  answer  is  striking:  Freedom  comes  with 
knowledge^  ignorance  is  bondage. 

But  there  is  more  than  one  sense  in  which  this  say- 
ing may  be  taken.  We  have  for  example  the  Ba- 
conian thought,  "knowledge  is  power."  That  is, 
given  any  end  to  be  striven  for,  other  things  being 
equal  the  one  who  brings  science  to  bear  is  the  more 
likely  to  conquer  circumstances,  to  triumph,  to  be 
free.  This  sense  of  the  power  of  knowledge  is  not 
lacking  in  Spinoza. 

But  the  freedom  that  comes  with  knowledge  may 
be  of  a  higher  kind  than  the  mere  bettering  of  our 
chances  of  success.  After  all,  human  skill  is  ex- 
tremely limited  j  defeat  is  every  man's  portion,  and 
one  of  the  most  important  questions  in  life  is  how  to 
bear  failure. 

If  knowledge  is  our  best  arm  to  ward  off  defeat, 
so  is  it  our  best  solace  when  defeat,  the  inevitable, 
comes.  For  do  we  but  understand  that  the  fate  that 
has  come  upon  us  was  not  to  be  escaped  but  was  im- 
posed by  the  eternal  laws  of  nature,  repining  be- 
comes impossible.  Pain  is  a  fact,  we  cannot  escape 
it  altogether,  we  cannot  deny  it  when  it  has  seized  us. 
We  can  though  prevent  the  sourness  and  bitterness 
that  the  ignorant  fall  prey  to  when  they  suffer. 
For  pain  is  one  thing,  hate  another.  Pain  is  not 
to  be  escaped  j  hate  may  be.     And  the  way  to  kill 

55 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

hate  in  our  hearts  is  to  connect  the  individual  fact 
that  is  painful  with  the  whole  order  of  nature  which 
makes  this  as  every  other  fact  necessary.  Now  the 
order  of  nature  as  we  have  seen  flows  from  God  as 
the  theorems  of  geometry  flow  from  its  axioms.  To 
understand  the  necessity  of  any  fact  is  to  recognize 
God  as  its  cause.  When  we  have  done  this  the  bit- 
terness of  defeat  is  gone.  No  man,  says  Spinoza,  can 
hate  God. 

I  have  mentioned  two  senses  in  which  knowledge 
meant  freedom:  (i)  the  sense  in  which  it  reduces 
the  chances  of  failure  and  pain  to  a  minimum j  (2) 
the  sense  in  which  it  frees  us  from  the  bondage  of 
passion  and  bitterness,  when  the  unavoidable  re- 
mainder of  pain  comes  upon  us.  There  is  still  one 
deepest  sense  in  which  knowledge  is  freedom.  So 
far,  the  excellence  of  knowledge  has  been  made  to 
depend  upon  its  fitness  as  a  means  —  either  to  the 
end  of  obtaining  a  maximum  of  success,  or  to  the 
end  of  bearing  the  still  inevitable  minimum  of  de- 
feat. We  have  now  to  consider  knowledge  as  an 
end  in  itself. 

Since,  as  we  have  seen,  the  pain  of  life  is  the  sense 
of  defeat,  of  limitation  j  its  pleasure  the  sense  of 
triumph,  of  freedom,  we  should  expect  to  find  Spi- 
noza urging  as  the  blessed  way  of  life  that  one,  if 
any  such  there  be,  which  could  meet  no  defeat  j  that 

56 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

one  whose  success  did  not  hang  upon  circum- 
stances in  which  a  man's  life  happened  to  be  castj 
that  life,  in  a  word,  that  was  at  each  moment  abso- 
lute freedom. 

You  will  doubtless  have  anticipated  that  these 
blessings  are  claimed  by  our  philosopher  for  that 
way  of  life  which  is  a  single  hearted  pursuit  of 
knowledge.  "  Wherefore,"  he  has  written,  "  the 
ultimate  aim  of  the  man  who  is  controlled  by  reason, 
that  is,  the  highest  desire  with  which  he  strives  to  re- 
strain all  others,  is  that  which  impels  him  adequately 
to  know  himself  and  all  other  things  that  can  fall 
within  the  scope  of  his  understanding." 

And  again  he  has  said :  "  There  is  nothing  in  na- 
ture that  is  opposed  to  the  understandings  nothing 
that  can  destroy  it."  (The  word  "  understanding  " 
replaces  the  original  expression  "  intellectual  love." 
We  shall  see  presently  that  for  Spinoza  to  under- 
stand is  to  love  God.) 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  Spinoza  did  not  deal  as 
minutely  with  the  question:  Are  we  free  to  obtain 
knowledge,  as  he  did  with  the  thesis:  Knowledge 
when  obtained  is  freedom.  For  one  feels  that  what- 
ever the  blessedness  of  knowledge,  if  understanding 
is  denied  us  we  are  not  blessed.  And  has  not  Spi- 
noza himself  said  that  the  path  to  knowledge  is 
a  difficult  one?     And  he  adds  "  surely  it  must  be 

57 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

difEcult,  since  it  is  so  rarely  found.  For  if  salvation 
were  easily  attained  and  could  be  found  without 
great  labor,  how  could  it  be  neglected  by  nearly 
every  one?  " 

Had  Spinoza  maintained  that  not  only  knowledge 
but  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  was  blessed,  then  in- 
deed salvation  must  lie  at  every  man's  door.  For 
is  not  life  itself  one  long  education?  And  if  it  bring 
its  share  of  disillusionment,  may  we  not  repeat  the 
words  of  a  distinguished  German  scientist  of  our  own 
day,  "All  disillusionment  is  enlightenment"?  And 
this  I  think  is  the  burden  of  Spinoza's  teaching:  "  Let 
the  pain  of  life  teach  you  to  understand  and  you  will 
not  hate  life,  but  in  the  joy  of  understanding, 
love  it.'' 

You  will  learn  to  love  life!  But  Spinoza  has 
a  loftier  word  for  it:  You  will  learn  to  love  God. 
A  clearing  up  of  this  expression  may  well  end  our 
account  of  the  religion  of  Spinoza.  You  must  recall 
our  saying  that  for  Spinoza  and  his  fellow  rational- 
ists, all  truths  were  deducible  from  the  single  one 
"  God  is,"  as  all  theorems  of  geometry  are  proved 
from  its  axioms.  If  the  truths  respecting  triangles 
follow  from  the  nature  of  a  triangle  and  are  not 
merely  the  result  of  physical  measurement,  so  too, 
the  truths  about  the  world  follow  from  the  nature 

58 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

of  God  and  are  not  merely  brute  facts  that  we  have 
to  accept  because  we  are  continually  bumping  against 
them.  To  understand  a  particular  experience  is  to 
recognize  God  as  its  cause.  But  we  have  seen  that 
such  understanding  is  the  greatest  happiness  that 
can  come  to  man,  for  it  is  his  assurance  of  power,  of 
freedom  from  pain.  Now  Spinoza  defines  love  as 
"  pleasure  accompanied  with  the  idea  of  an  external 
cause."  If  understanding  is  pleasure,  and  if  it  is 
at  the  same  time  recognition  of  God  as  a  cause,  it  ful- 
fils the  condition  of  being  love,  and  of  course,  love 
of  God.  It  is  this  love  of  God  that  is  at  once  knowl- 
edge, freedom,  virtue  and  blessedness.  "  For  bless- 
edness," our  philosopher  has  written,  "  blessedness 
is  not  the  reward  of  virute,  but  virtue  itself  5  nor  do 
we  rejoice  in  it  because  we  restrain  our  desires,  but 
on  the  contrary  because  we  rejoice  in  it  we  are  able 
to  restrain  our  desires." 

"  I  know,"  he  writes,  "  that  the  belief  of  the  mul- 
titude is  different.  Most  men  seem  to  think  that 
they  are  free  just  in  so  far  as  they  are  permitted  to 
gratify  desire,  and  that  they  give  up  their  independ- 
ence just  in  so  far  as  they  are  obliged  to  live  accord- 
ing to  the  precept  of  the  divine  law. 

"  Piety,  then,  and  religion  and  all  things  without 
restriction  that  are  referred  to  as  greatness  of  soul, 
they  regard  as  burdens  5  and  they  hope  after  death 

59 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

to  receive  the  reward  of  their  bondage,  that  is,  of 
piety  and  religion.  And  not  by  this  hope  alone,  but 
also  and  chiefly  by  fear  —  the  fear  of  being  punished 
after  death  with  dire  torments  —  are  they  induced 
to  live  according  to  the  precept  of  the  divine  law 
so  far  as  their  poverty  and  feebleness  of  soul  permit. 
If  men  had  not  this  hope  and  fear,  but  if  on  the 
contrary  they  thought  that  minds  perished  with  the 
body,  and  that  for  the  wretched,  worn  out  with  the 
burden  of  piety,  there  was  no  continuance  of  exist- 
ence, they  would  return  to  their  inclinations,  and 
decide  to  regulate  everything  according  to  their  lusts 
and  to  be  governed  by  chance  rather  than  by  them- 
selves. This  seems  to  me  no  less  absurd  than  it 
would  if  someone  because  he  does  not  believe  he 
can  nourish  his  body  with  good  food  to  eternity 
should  choose  to  stuff  himself  with  what  is  poisonous 
and  deadly;  or  because  he  sees  that  his  mind  is  not 
eternal  or  immortal  should  choose  on  that  account 
to  be  mad  and  to  live  without  reason." 

And  Spinoza  closes  his  doctrine  of  life  with  a 
calm  hymn  to  science.  "I  have  completed  all  that 
I  intended  to  show  regarding  the  power  of  the  mind 
over  the  emotions,  and  the  freedom  of  the  mind. 
From  what  I  have  said  it  is  evident  how  much 
stronger  and  better  the  wise  man  is  than  the  igno- 
rant man,  who  is  held  by  mere  desire.    For  the  igno- 

60 


BENEDICT    DE    SPINOZA 

rant  man,  besides  being  agitated  in  many  ways  by 
external  causes  and  never  attaining  to  true  satisfac- 
tion of  the  soul,  lives  as  it  were  without  consciousness 
of  himself,  of  God,  and  of  things,  and  just  as  soon 
as  he  ceases  to  be  acted  upon,  ceases  to  be.  While 
on  the  contrary  the  wise  man  is  little  disturbed  in 
mind,  but  conscious  by  a  certain  eternal  necessity  of 
himself,  of  God,  and  of  things,  he  never  ceases  to  be, 
but  is  always  possessed  of  true  satisfaction  of  soul. 
If  indeed,  the  path  that  I  have  shown  to  lead  to 
this  appear  difficult,  yet  it  may  be  found,  and  all 
excellent  things  are  as  difficult  as  they  are  rare." 


6i 


Ill 

A   DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

An  Illustration 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

I  HAVE  somewhere  found  it  recorded  that  as 
Johann  Gottlieb  Fichte  progressed  with  his  first 
reading  of  Kant's  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  he 
was  moved  to  tears.  To  those  who  have  labored 
through  the  tortured  pages  of  the  great  German 
thinker  this  would  be  no  matter  for  surprise,  were  it 
not  for  the  quality  of  the  tears:  —  not  those  of  vexa- 
tion and  baffled  understanding,  indeed,  but  of  enthu- 
siasm and  sheer  gratitude.  For  Fichte  had  fallen 
into  the  melancholy  persusasion  of  Spinoza.  At 
least,  certain  views  of  this  austere  thinker  of  the 
seventeenth  century  appeared  to  Fichte  as  no  less 
gloomy  in  their  implication  than  irresistible  in  the 
logic  which  led  to  them.  Irresistible  were  the 
reasons  which  had  driven  Spinoza  to  look  upon  na- 
ture as  governed  by  inexorable  Fate.  In  the  world 
as  a  whole  there  was  no  purpose,  in  its  parts  there 
was  no  freedom.  Gloomy,  then,  was  the  implication 
few  but  Spinoza  himself  could  escape,  that  man  in 
such  a  machine  had  lost  all  the  familiar  marks  of  a 
moral  being.  It  was  from  the  heavy  chains  of  such 
bondage  that  Kant  seemed  to  free  the  poor  Spinozist 
by  holding  out  to  him  the  hope  of  a  deeper-lying 

65 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

freedom,  while  not  denying  his  apparent  subjection 
to  the  universal  and  necessary  laws  of  physical  na- 
ture. It  was  by  this  promise  of  freedom  that  Fichte 
was  moved  to  the  enthusiasm,  the  gratitude,  the  tears 
of  which  I  have  spoken. 

If  I  have  mentioned  these  matters,  it  is  not  because 
our  present  reflections  are  to  dwell  upon  the  philos- 
ophy of  Fichte,  nor  yet  upon  the  historic  contrast 
between  Spinoza  and  Kant.  It  is  rather  because  the 
seriousness  with  which  Fichte  faced  the  issue  between 
these  two  thinkers  is  shared  by  the  men  of  all  times 
and  of  all  countries  who  have  given  themselves  to 
the  pleasures  and  to  the  burdens  of  reflection.  The 
issue  was  not  first  raised  by  the  seventeenth  century, 
and  was  not  laid  with  the  eighteenth.  That  it  re- 
mains one  of  the  most  interesting  to  which  we  of  the 
twentieth  century  can  turn  our  attention  is  just  the 
point  which  I  wish  to  bring  out  in  the  form  of  an  ex- 
ample —  an  example  taken,  not  indeed  from  the 
technical  philosophy  of  our  day,  but  from  a  writer 
holding  a  distinguished  place  among  its  novelists. 
Those  of  you  who  have  enjoyed  the  more  mundane 
writings  of  M.  Paul  Bourget,  —  his  "  Cosmopolis," 
his  "  Coeur  de  Femme,"  his  "  Complications  Sen- 
timentales,"  —  are  perhaps  not  prepared  to  meet  in 
him  the  philosopher  and  moralist  that  shows  through 
his  less  widely  known,  but  sometimes  more  admired 

66 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

work,  "  Le  Disciple."  You  will  allow  me,  then,  to 
present  so  much  as  is  indispensable  of  the  story  o£ 
Bourget's  "  Disciple." 

Let  me  begin  by  giving  some  idea  of  the  way  in 
which  the  plot  of  the  tale  may  have  worked  itself 
out  in  the  author's  mind.  If  a  mass  of  rock  were  to 
fall  from  a  cliff,  and  at  its  foot  to  crush  before  your 
eyes  a  human  being —  and  not  a  mere  vague  hu- 
manity, but,  let  us  say,  a  young  girl  just  entering 
upon  the  promise  of  life  —  you  would,  of  course, 
feel  the  full  horror  of  the  catastrophe.  More  than 
that,  you  would  not  be  a  descendant  of  the  myth- 
makers,  as  we  all  of  us  are,  were  you  not  to  cast  about 
for  some  soul  in  the  order  of  things  on  whom  to 
blame  the  calamity  as  though  it  were  a  crime.  Such 
shadowy  beings  from  out  of  the  past  as  the  Fates, 
the  "  purblind  doomsters,"  are  creatures  of  this  hu- 
man instinct  to  transform  physical  nature  into  a 
moral  being.  But  it  is  no  longer  easy  to  take  these 
inventions  of  our  fancy  as  seriously  as  did  our  fore- 
fathers. Galileo  and  Newton  have  come  between  us 
and  the  myth-makers.  They  have  enabled  us,  and  at 
the  same  time  have  constrained  us,  to  envisage  the 
event  I  have  just  depicted  as  essentially  a  conflict 
between  gravitational  and  elastic  forces,  not  one  be- 
tween the  human  soul  and  the  soul  of  Fate.     The 

67 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

thing  moves  us  more,  no  doubt,  than  it  would  had 
the  heavy  mass  rolled  quietly  on  to  the  bottom  of 
the  valley,  because  the  young  girl  as  a  possible  ob- 
ject of  sympathy  and  love  is  nearer  to  ourselves  than 
is  a  mere  topographical  contour  j  but  our  emotions, 
be  they  what  they  may,  are  not  of  themselves  enough 
to  transform  a  physical  fact  into  a  moral  event,  a 
catastrophe  into  a  crime. 

Robert  Greslou,  the  Disciple  of  our  story,  is  not 
indeed  made  to  kill  such  a  young  girl,  but  in  a 
singularly  detestable  fashion  to  render  it  inevitable 
that  she  should  kill  herself.  The  author  has  taken 
care  that  we  should  have  no  feeling  but  loathing  for 
this  creature  of  his  brain.  We  cannot  even  extend 
to  him  that  pity  and  half -forgiveness  that  the  in- 
stinctive man  commonly  feels  for  the  aberrations  of 
passion.  To  Robert  the  whole  episode  was  a  care- 
fully planned  piece  of  psychological  research,  —  a 
vivisection  of  the  emotional  life.  The  author,  in  his 
anxiety  that  we  should  not  be  tempted  to  excuse,  but 
should  confine  ourselves  to  understanding,  has  cre- 
ated a  monster.  "  Non,  monsieur,"  says  Andre  de 
Jussat,  the  brother  of  Charlotte,  to  Robert  who  has 
offered  him  all  the  satisfaction  left  in  his  power, 
"  Non,  monsieur,  people  do  not  fight  men  like  you, 
they  execute  them." 

Now,  Bourget's  interest  in  the  situation  thus  cre- 

68 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

ated  I  conceive  to  be  this :  May  we  not  gain  sufficient 
insight  into  the  causes  of  this  young  man's  conduct 
to  make  it  appear  as  inevitable  as  the  fall  of  the  rock 
from  the  cliflF?  And  if  we  do  this,  must  we  not 
view  the  catastrophe  in  which  a  human  being  happens 
to  play  a  part  as  no  less  void  of  moral  aspects 
than  that  in  which  a  falling  mass  is  concerned? 
There  we  could  not  blame  the  stone  j  here,  if  the 
case  is  made  out,  we  should  not  blame  the  man.  In 
neither  situation  is  it  meaningful  to  blame  the  facts 
and  laws  of  nature. 

It  is  for  the  right  so  to  regard  his  own  conduct  that 
the  Disciple  pleads  with  his  old  master,  Adrien  Sixte. 
At  the  end  of  his  autobiography  he  makes  a  tragic 
appeal  to  the  man  whose  writings  had  formed  his 
mind.  "  I  felt  assured,"  he  writes,  "  that  I  should 
be  able  to  tell  you  my  story  as  you  develop  your 
problems  of  psychology  in  the  books  I  have  so  con- 
stantly read,  and  having  finished,  I  find  nothing  to 
offer  you  but  the  despairing  cry,  De  profundis! 
Write  to  me,  cher  maitre,  guide  me.  Strengthen  me 
in  the  doctrine  which  was,  which  still  is,  my  own,  — 
in  that  conviction  of  universal  necessity  which  holds 
that  even  our  most  detestable,  our  most  damning 
acts,  even  this  cold  enterprise  of  seduction,  even  my 
weakness  when  it  came  to  keeping  my  side  of  the 
compact  of  death,  are  the  outcome  of  laws  that  gov- 

69 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

ern  this  immense  universe.  Tell  me  that  I  am  not  a 
monster,  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  monster, 
that  you  will  still  be  there  when  I  come  out  of  this 
supreme  crisis  to  welcome  me  as  your  disciple,  as 
your  friend." 

What,  then,  is  the  philosophy  of  this  Adrien  Sixte 
that,  having  brought  a  human  being  to  such  a  pass, 
it  could  still  be  appealed  to  to  bring  him  through? 

Adrien  Sixte  had  made  two  contributions  to  phil- 
osophy. The  first  was  a  negative  analysis  of  what 
Herbert  Spencer  calls  the  Unknowable.  "Many 
excellent  minds,"  the  author  assures  us,  "catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  probable  reconciliation  of  science  and 
religion  on  this  ground  of  the  Unknowable.  For 
M.  Sixte  it  is  a  last  illusion  which  he  is  hot  to  destroy 
with  an  energy  of  argument  that  has  not  been 
equalled  since  Kant." 

"  M.  Sixte's  second  title  to  honor  as  a  psychologist 
consists  in  a  quite  new  and  ingenious  development  of 
the  animal  origin  of  human  sensibility.  .  .  .  He 
undertook  for  the  genesis  of  types  of  thought  the 
work  that  Darwin  essayed  for  the  forms  of  life. 
Applying  the  laws  of  evolution  to  all  the  facts  that 
make  up  the  human  heart,  he  thought  to  show  that 
our  most  exquisite  sensibilities,  our  most  delicate 
moral  discriminations,  as  well  as  our  most  shameful 

70 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

degradations,  are  the  final  development,  the  ultimate 
metamorphosis  of  very  simple  instincts,  themselves 
transformations  of  the  properties  of  the  primitive 
cell:  in  such  wise  that  the  moral  universe  exactly 
reproduces  the  physical,  and  that  the  former  is  only 
the  consciousness,  now  painful,  now  ecstatic,  of  the 
latter." 

We  owe  to  M.  Sixte  some  phrases  that  translate 
with  extreme  energy  this  conviction  that  all  is  neces- 
sitated in  the  soul  —  even  the  illusion  that  the  soul 
is  free. 

"  Every  act,"  he  writes,  "  is  but  an  addition.  To 
say  that  it  is  free,  is  to  say  that  there  is  in  a  sum  more 
than  there  is  in  the  elements  added.  This  is  as  ab- 
surd in  psychology  as  in  arithmetic." 

And  elsewhere  he  put  it  thus:  "  If  we  knew  truly 
the  relative  position  of  all  the  phenomena  which  con- 
stitute the  actual  universe,  we  could  at  this  moment 
with  a  certainty  equal  to  that  of  the  astronomers,  tell 
the  day,  the  hour,  the  minute  at  which,  say,  England 
will  evacuate  India,  when  Europe  will  have  burned 
its  last  lump  of  coal,  when  such  a  criminal,  still  to 
be  born,  will  assassinate  his  father,  when  such  a 
poem,  yet  to  be  conceived,  will  be  composed.  The 
future  is  contained  in  the  present  as  all  the  properties 
of  a  triangle  are  contained  in  its  definition." 

The  provenance  of  this  type  of  thought  is  ob- 

71 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

vious  enough  to  the  experienced  reader.  Our  author 
has  in  an  ingenious  way  translated  his  Spinoza  into 
the  language  of  contemporary  science.  Let  us 
merely  catch  up  a  note  or  two  that  will  render  our 
Spinozist's  attitude  toward  common  morality,  and 
his  understanding  of  the  master's  doctrine  of  emanci- 
pation through  science. 

In  the  first  sense  we  find  that  Adrien  Sixte  has 
somewhere  written,  "All  conscious  beings  must  be 
looked  upon  by  the  scientist  as  experiments  set  up  by 
nature.  Among  these  experiments  some  are  useful 
to  society,  and  one  hears  of  virtue  j  others  are  de- 
structive, and  one  hears  of  vice  and  of  crime."  And 
he  adds,  a  little  by  way  of  flourish,  "  These  last  are 
nevertheless  the  most  significant,  and  we  should  lack 
an  essential  datum  for  the  science  of  mind  if  Nero, 
say,  or  such  and  such  a  tyrant  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury had  not  existed."  Or  again  he  has  said,  "To 
consider  one's  destiny  as  a  corollary  of  this  living 
geometry  which  is  nature,  and  therefore  as  an  in- 
evitable consequence  of  the  eternal  axiom  whose  in- 
definite development  is  prolonged  through  all  time 
and  all  space,  this  is  the  unique  way  to  emancipation." 

To  show  that  human  conduct  is  so  necessitated  as 
to  be  without  moral  aspects:  "  this  is  the  unique  way 
to  emancipation."    It  was  just  for  the  master's  aid 

72 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

over  the  last  rough  steps  of  the  path  to  this  emanci- 
pation that  we  left  our  Disciple  crying,  "De  pro- 
fundis."  Can  the  aid  be  given?  Can  it  not?  This 
is  the  singularly  philosophical  catastrophe  of  this 
singularly  reflective  novel. 

For  us  the  issue  depends  upon  an  analysis  of  what 
our  philosopher  would  regard  as  determinants  of 
human  conduct.  That  it  is  not  meaningless  to  seek 
explanations  of  human  acts  all  admit,  for  all  alike 
are  engaged  in  the  search  for  them,  and  much  that 
is  of  importance  to  daily  life  depends  upon  one's 
ability  correctly  to  explain  and  so  to  predict  the  con- 
duct of  one's  fellows.  The  only  question  is  whether 
the  laws  by  which  we  explain  and  predict  could  con- 
ceivably be  increased  in  precision  until  they  com- 
pletely determined  conduct.  To  judge  this  we  must 
consider  of  what  nature  these  laws  are,  i.^.,  in  the 
present  context,  with  what  illustrations  of  such  laws 
our  author  furnishes  us. 

We  are  familiar  with  the  idea  that  the  explanation 
of  a  fact  consists  in  pointing  out  its  likeness  to  others. 
We  are  not  surprised,  then,  to  find  our  young  an- 
alyst, following  the  guide  of  a  master  who,  we  have 
heard,  regarded  "our  most  exquisite  sensibilities" 
as  "  the  development  of  very  simple  instincts,"  look- 
ing upon  his  relations  with  a  singularly  pure  young 
woman  as  not  without  likeness  to  the  battle  of  life 

73 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

throughout  the  animal  kingdom.  "  It  is  the  law  of 
the  world,"  he  reasons,  "  that  all  existence  is  a  con- 
quest carried  on  and  maintained  by  the  stronger  at 
the  expense  of  the  weaker.  This  is  as  true  of  the 
moral  universe  as  of  the  physical.  There  are  souls 
of  prey  as  there  are  wolves,  tiger-cats,  and  hawks," 
and  he  kept  repeating  to  himself,  "  I  am  a  soul  of 
prey,  a  soul  of  prey,"  with  a  furious  access  of  what 
the  mystics  call  the  p-'tde  of  life. 

But  if  the  animal  instincts  are  the  most  widely 
related  of  those  that  display  themselves  in  human 
conduct,  more  special  instincts  must  be  appealed  to 
to  account  for  what  is  special  in  the  act.  Well,  in  its 
proper  place  we  find  that  the  family  of  Robert  Gres- 
lou  had  its  roots  in  war-trodden  Lorraine.  Of  no 
very  remote  peasant  origin,  son  of  a  conquered  race, 
he  catches  himself  at  certain  moments  reacting  with 
instinctive  hate  toward  an  individual  whom  he 
hardly  knows  and  who  has  done  him  no  personal  in- 
jury, yet  whose  every  aspect  shows  him  to  have 
sprung  from  the  conquerors,  in  whose  most  courteous 
gesture  there  lurks  a  polished  insolence  of  aristocracy. 

When,  then,  a  human  pity  for  his  prospective 
victim  comes  upon  this  "  soul  of  prey,"  it  is  such  a 
hate  that  neutralizes  it.  "  Why,"  he  cries,  "  in  so 
many  of  my  imaginings  does  Charlotte  appear  by  the 
side  of  her  brother  Andre?     What  secret  fibre  of 

74 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

hatred  had  this  man  by  his  mere  existence  touched  in 
my  heart,  that  simply  to  imagine  him  with  his  sister 
dried  up  the  fountain  of  my  pity  and  left  nothing  in 
me  but  the  will  to  win?  " 

In  answer  we  are  expected  to  recall  the  moment 
when  Robert  Greslou,  introduced  into  the  family  of 
the  Marquis  de  Jussat  as  tutor  to  the  younger  son, 
finds  himself  for  the  first  time  in  the  presence  of  the 
Comte  Andre,  heir  and  dominating  spirit  of  the 
house.  "  I  felt  then,"  our  young  analyst  records, 
"  in  its  full  force,  in  the  depths  of  that  instinct  of 
life  into  which  it  is  so  hard  for  thought  to  descend, 
the  revelation  of  that  sense  of  race  which  modern 
science  attributes  to  all  nature,  and  which  conse- 
quently must  be  found  in  man.  .  .  .  Why  should 
not  this  hostility  be  an  heredity  like  the  rest?  The 
horse  that  has  never  approached  a  lion  trembles  with 
fear  when  his  stall  is  made  up  with  straw  on  which 
such  a  beast  of  prey  has  lain.  Then  fear  is  inherited, 
and  is  not  fear  a  form  of  hate?  Why  should  not 
hate  be  inherited  too?  And  in  a  thousand  cases  envy 
is  probably  nothing  but  that  —  was  nothing  more 
than  that  in  my  case,  certainly,  —  the  echo  in  us  of 
hatreds  long  ago  acquired  by  those  whose  sons  we 
are,  and  which  continue  in  us  the  battle  of  hearts  be- 
gun hundreds  of  years  ago." 

No  less  carefully  does  our  author  work  out  an- 

75 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

other  group  of  influences:  those  that  fall  within  the 
experience  of  the  individual.  Influences  of  family, 
of  school,  of  books  read,  of  friends,  of  adventures 
of  sex,  of  religious  education,  all  culminating  in  the 
forming  of  a  character  whose  foundations  have  al- 
ready been  laid  in  its  heredities,  in  this  case  a  type 
for  which  the  French  have  invented  the  expressive 
term,  a  cerebral.  The  rest  one  can  readily  imagine, 
the  delicate  suggestions  of  daily  life,  the  influences, 
slight  in  themselves,  that  play  upon  the  attuned  char- 
acter and  to  which  it  resounds  with  acts  of  this  kind 
or  that,  an  instrument  touched  by  the  fingers  of 
Fate. 

Such,  then,  is  our  author's  understanding  of  what 
it  means  so  to  explain  a  human  act  that  it  shall  appear 
to  follow  inevitably  from  recognized  laws  of  nature. 
If  it  do  so  follow,  we  ask  again:  Can  it  in  the  end 
be  regarded  as  either  good  or  bad? 

It  is  not  to  our  author  that  we  may  turn  for  an 
answer.  M.  Bourget  is  an  artist,  and  owes  his  alle- 
giance to  the  interests  of  the  heart,  not  to  the  curi- 
osities of  the  intellect.  For  him  it  is  sufficient  to  have 
shown  that  to  have  lived  out  a  Spinozistic  philosophy 
would  in  extreme  cases  lead  to  very  ugly  results. 
He  is  addressing  himself,  as  he  tells  us  in  his  pref- 
ace, to  the  youth  of  France,  and  it  may  not  be  with- 

76 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

out  interest  to  note  the  place  he  gives  to  the  type 
of  philosophy  we  have  just  been  considering  among 
the  influences  dangerous  to  the  young  France  of  his 
day. 

"There  are  two  types  of  young  men,"  he 
says,  "  that  I  see  before  me  at  the  present  moment, 
which  are  before  you  too,  as  two  forms  of  temptation 
equally  redoubtable  and  dangerous.  The  one  is  cyn- 
ical and  by  preference  jovial.  He  has,  since  his 
twentieth  year,  discounted  life,  and  his  religion  is 
contained  in  the  single  word,  to  enjoy y  —  which  is 
translated  by  this  other,  to  succeed.  Whether  he 
go  into  politics  or  business,  literature  or  art,  sport 
or  industry,  whether  he  be  an  ofiicer,  diplomat,  or 
lawyer,  he  has  only  himself  for  god,  for  beginning 
and  for  end.  This  young  man  is  a  monster,  is  he 
not?  For  it  is  to  be  a  monster,  to  have  lived  but 
twenty-five  years  and  to  have  by  way  of  a  soul  a 
calculating  machine  at  the  service  of  a  pleasure-ma- 
chine. Yet  I  fear  him  less  for  you  than  I  do  a 
certain  other  type.  This  one  has  all  the  aristocratic 
traits  of  nervous  organization,  all  those  of  mental- 
ity. He  is  an  intellectual  and  refined  epicure,  as 
the  first  was  a  brutal  and  scientific  epicure.  This 
delicate  nihilist,  how  unpleasant  he  is  to  encounter, 
and  how  he  abounds  in  the  land!  At  twenty-five 
years  he  has  made  the  tour  of  all  ideas.    His  critical 

77 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

spirit,  precociously  awakened,  has  grasped  the  last 
results  of  the  most  subtle  philosophy  of  this  age. 
Do  not  speak  to  him  of  impiety  or  materialism.  He 
knows  that  the  word  matter  has  no  very  precise  sense. 
He  is,  on  the  other  hand,  too  intelligent  not  to  admit 
that  all  religions  may  have  been  legitimate  in  their 
time,  only  he  has  never  believed  and  never  will  be- 
lieve any  one  of  them  any  more  than  he  will  ever 
believe  in  anything  in  particular,  if  not  in  the  amus- 
ing play  of  his  mind  which  he  has  transformed  into 
an  instrument  of  elegant  perversity.  Good  and  evil, 
beauty  and  ugliness,  vice  and  virtue  appear  to  him 
objects  of  simple  curiosity.  The  human  soul  is  for 
him  a  clever  mechanism  which  it  amuses  him  to  take 
apart  by  way  of  experiment.  To  him  nothing  is 
true,  nothing  is  false  j  nothing  is  moral,  nothing  is 
immoral.  He  is  an  egoist,  subtle  and  refined,  whose 
one  occupation  lies  in  adorning  his  Self,  in  dressing  it 
out  with  new  sensations.  The  religious  life  of  hu- 
manity is  for  him  only  a  pretext  for  such  sensations, 
as  is  the  intellectual  life,  as  is  the  life  of  feeling. 
His  corruption  is  vastly  more  profound  than  that  of 
the  barbarian  of  pleasure,  is  vastly  more  complicated, 
and  the  pretty  name  of  dilettantism  with  which  he 
covers  it  hides  its  cold  ferocity,  its  appalling  hard- 
ness. Ah,  we  know  him  too  well,  this  young  man; 
we  have  all  just  missed  being  such  as  he  is,  we  whom 

78 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

the  paradoxes  of  too  eloquent  masters  have  too  much 
charmed.  We  have  all  been  this  man  for  a  day,  for 
an  hour,  and  if  I  have  written  this  book,  it  is  to  show 
you,  you  who  are  not  yet  like  him,  child  of  twenty 
whose  soul  is  yet  in  process  of  making,  what  base 
things  such  egoism  may  hide  in  its  depths." 

For  Bourget,  then,  to  have  justified  this  picture 
of  the  youthful  Spinozist,  is  enough.  But  for  us, 
who  for  the  moment  have  become  philosophers,  who 
have  given  ourselves  up  to  the  curiosities  of  the 
mind,  it  is  not  enough  to  have  convinced  ourselves 
that  certain  teachings  are  ugly  and  unpleasant  to 
contemplate  5  we  must  know  whether  they  are  true 
or  false.  While  much  that  is  unlovely  is  also  un- 
true, who  but  the  poet  can  feel  sure  in  his  heart  that 
only  the  beautiful  is  true?  Well,  then,  if  we  were 
to  face  the  issue  that  seems  to  be  drawn  between  that 
universal  necessity  which  science  hopes  to  establish 
throughout  the  domain  of  nature,  and  that  freedom 
which  ethics  regards  as  indispensable  to  the  existence 
of  moral  beings,  —  if  we  are  to  face  this  issue 
squarely,  on  which  side  should  we  range  ourselves? 

I  answer:  On  both  sides.  If  you  say:  But  this  is 
difBcult  to  do,  I  should  not  be  inclined  to  dispute  itj 
were  it  otherwise,  opinions  on  this  subject  would  not 
be  so  much  at  variance.  Yet  it  may  not  be  impossible 
to  do.     And  that  the  satisfaction  of  the  result  has 

79 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

been  thought  to  be  worth  any  effort  it  may  cost  to 
reach  it,  is  evidenced  by  the  long  struggle  which  the 
history  of  human  reflection  records,  to  hold  at  the 
same  time  the  vital  ideals  of  science  and  the  no  less 
vital  ideals  of  morality.  To  consider  a  way  in  which 
I  believe  this  may  be  done,  will  occupy  us  throughout 
the  remainder  of  the  present  discussion. 

Let  us  begin  by  making  clear  just  what  is  the  ideal 
which  guides  the  scientist  in  his  expectations  respect- 
ing the  world  he  studies.  Perhaps  no  one  accom- 
plishment of  science  has  been  more  inspiring  than  the 
picture  of  certain  large  aspects  of  nature  that  Newton 
succeeded  in  drawing,  —  such  aspects,  namely,  as  are 
presented  in  the  behavior  of  suns,  and  planets,  and 
moons.  All  these  huge  masses  are  governed  by  a 
single  law,  called  the  law  of  gravitation.  Now  to 
say  that  they  are  governed  by  this  law  means  no  more 
than  this,  that  if  we  knew  the  mass,  the  position,  and 
the  velocity  of  each  of  these  heavenly  bodies  at  a 
given  moment,  we  should  be  able  by  means  of  the 
law  to  predict  their  masses,  positions,  and  velocities 
for  all  future  moments.  This  result  is,  to  be  sure, 
only  an  approximation,  for  we  know  that  gravitation 
is  not  the  only  force  which  bodies  exert  on  each  other. 
We  have  never  succeeded,  e.g.,  in  reducing  the  attrac- 
tions and  repulsions  of  electrified  bodies  to  gravita- 

80 

A 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

tion,  nor  do  we  any  longer  try  to  do  this.  But  New- 
ton's degree  of  success  provides  us  with  an  ideal  to 
which  we  seem  ever  more  and  more  closely  to  ap- 
proach. Instead  of  considering  such  huge  bodies  as 
suns  and  planets  and  their  satellites,  we  divide  these 
up  into  extremely  minute  parts,  which  we  may  call  for 
the  moment  atoms,  .  We  struggle  then  to  conceive  a 
law  as  completely  determining  the  behavior  of  these 
atoms,  as  the  law  of  gravitation  determines  that  of 
planets.  So  that,  if  we  knew  a  limited  number  of 
characteristics  of  each  of  these  atoms  at  a  given  mo- 
ment, our  law  would  enable  us  to  predict  their  future 
and  to  reconstruct  their  past  history.  As  we  ap- 
proach more  and  more  closely  to  this  ideal,  less  and 
less  in  the  behavior  of  these  small  parts  of  nature 
is  left  to  guess-work.  In  so  far  as  we  hope  this  ideal 
may  be  continuously  approached,  we  hope  that  in  its 
atomic  parts  nature  is  entirely  devoid  of  freedom. 
And  if  we  hope  this,  we  must  inevitably  hope,  too, 
that  what  we  have  called  an  atom  is  neither  a  moral 
nor  an  immoral  being.  This  hope  is  usually  called 
the  mechanical  idealy  and  nature  in  the  light  of  it  is 
viewed  as  a  mechanism.  It  has  guided  science  to  vic- 
tory after  victory,  and  I  venture  to  think  that  no 
result  of  philosophical  experience  is  more  firmly  es- 
tablished than  this,  that  whatever  theory  we  may  in 
the  end  accept  respecting  human  nature,  its  freedom, 

8i 


^^ 


\9 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

its  moral  responsibilities,  no  assumption  of  that  the- 
ory may  stand  in  contradiction  with  the  mechanical 
ideal.  To  have  recognized  this  truth  and  to  have 
had  the  courage  to  maintain  it  at  all  costs,  was  the 
heroic  service  rendered  by  Spinoza  at  a  moment  in 
human  history  when  such  service  was  badly  needed. 
It  is  also  the  reason  why  Spinozism,  in  spite  of  its 
apparently  gloomy  outlook  upon  the  world,  has 
made  such  a  forcible  and  lasting  appeal  to  the  imag- 
ination of  thinking  men.  In  what  follows  it  is 
against  certain  false  implications  that  have  been 
thought  to  lie  in  this  mechanical  ideal,  and  not  against 
the  ideal  itself,  that  our  criticism  must  be  directed. 

Now  there  is  one  implication  that  lies  so  near  the 
surface  I  doubt  not  most  who  have  followed  so 
far  will  already  have  drawn  it.  If,  namely,  the 
atoms  of  which  we  have  spoken  are  bound  by  strict 
mechanical  law,  if  it  is  these  same  atoms  that  make 
up  the  human  body  and  that  are  concerned  in  its 
every  act,  must  not  the  conduct  of  that  body  be  an 
outcome  of  this  same  mechanical  necessity?  And  if 
this  be  so,  must  not  the  science  whose  ideal  we  have 
described  set  itself  once  for  all  against  the  hope  of 
finding  in  human  conduct  any  vestige  of  freedom, 
any  trace  of  moral  responsibility?  You  remember 
with  what  vigor  Adrien  Sixte  drew  this  very  conclu- 
sion.    "  Every  act,"  he  said,  "  is  but  an  addition. 

82 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

To  say  that  it  is  free,  is  to  say  there  is  in  a  sum  more 
than  there  is  in  its  elements  added.  This  is  as  ab- 
surd in  psychology  as  in  arithmetic." 

Yet  natural  as  this  inference  may  seem,  we  should, 
I  think,  see  that  it  is  unjustified,  that  the  instinct 
which  has  led  mankind  to  read  moral  aspects  into 
nature  was  possessed  of  a  deeper  insight  than  was 
our  philosopher  with  his  plausible  mathematics.  If, 
indeed,  we  could  construct  the  notion  of  a  man  out  of 
that  of  atoms  by  a  process  of  addition,  we  could  not 
escape  the  conclusion  of  Adrien  Sixte.  Then,  truly, 
moral  aspects  would  be  as  completely  lacking  to  the 
whole  being  as  they  are  to  the  atoms  which  enter 
into  his  composition.  That  we  cannot  do  this, — 
that  we  can,  indeed,  ojBFer  no  mechanical  definition  of 
life,  is  just  the  insight  which  permits  us,  nay,  prac- 
tically forces  us,  to  treat  man  as  a  free  moral  agent. 

We  can  frame  no  mechanical  definition  of  life! 
Nor  is  this  the  only  example  offered  by  experience 
of  a  term  applied  exclusively  to  mechanisms  and 
yet  meaning  nothing  mechanical.  Let  me  give  a 
homely  illustration.  There  is,  I  presume  every 
one  would  admit,  no  time-piece  which  is  not  a 
machine.  And  yet  we  can  offer  no  mechanical 
definition  of  a  time  piece,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
the  various  machines  to  which  this  term  applies  have 

83 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

no  mechanical  principle  in  common.  A  class  which 
may  include  such  divers  mechanisms  as  a  sun  dial, 
an  hour  glass,  a  water  clock,  a  pendulum  clock,  a 
spring  watch,  a  chronograph,  has  evidently  not  been 
given  a  single  name  to  mark  in  the  members  com- 
posing it  a  single  mechanical  nature*  The  only 
thing  these  members  have  in  common  is  a  cer- 
tain function  or  purpose,  —  that  of  producing  a 
movement  keeping  pace  with  the  apparent  mo- 
tion of  the  sun.  Just  so  with  the  class  of  beings 
we  call  living.  Each  of  them  at  each  moment 
of  its  existence  is  a  complete  illustration  of  mechan- 
ical law,  yet  all  of  them  offer  such  divers  illustra- 
tions of  this  law  that  they  cannot  have  been  put  into 
a  single  class  because  of  a  common  mechanical  nature. 
That  which  they  have  in  common,  by  virtue  of  which 
they  have  been  grouped  under  one  name,  is  once 
more  a  function  or  a  purpose.  For  we  observe  that 
living  things,  by  whatever  mechanical  devices,  ac- 
complish for  the  most  part  a  common  result,  that  of 
self-preservation. 

In  these  two  examples,  the  one  taken  from  the  in- 
animate, the  other  comprising  the  animate  world, 
we  see  how  well  it  may  come  about  that  a  certain 
character  belong  to  a  whole,  no  vestige  of  which  is 
to  be  found  in  its  constituent  parts.  A  single  atom 
cannot,  if  the  mechanical  ideal  is  maintained,  be  re- 

84 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

garded  as  acting  purposefully,  yet  a  sufficiently  com- 
plex group  of  atoms  may  well  enough  display  pur- 
pose in  its  behavior  and  to  that  purpose  owe  its  right 
to  the  name  we  give  it.  In  such  cases  the  real  ab- 
surdity we  are  in  danger  of  committing  is  not  the  one 
that  Adrien  Sixte  scoffs  at,  but  the  one  he  unsus- 
pectingly falls  into.  Axioms  of  addition  are  excel- 
lent guides  for  those  whose  problem  is  to  add.  But 
not  all  composition  of  parts  into  a  whole  is  so  simple 
as  the  business  of  forming  a  sum.  And  where  we  are 
not  adding,  the  axioms  of  addition  may  prove  the 
worst  of  company. 

Let  us  proceed  to  an  immediate  consequence  of 
this  last  observation.  If  no  mechanical  definition 
can  be  offered  for  a  given  term,  it  is  impossible  that 
the  things  to  which  this  term  applies  should  be  gov- 
erned by  mechanical  law.  We  may  easily  convince 
ourselves,  however,  that  although  not  subjected  to 
mechanical  law,  they  are  frequently,  indeed  gener- 
ally, governed  by  another  kind  of  law  that  is  of  the 
greatest  interest  to  us.  Let  me  recur  to  our  illustra- 
tion of  the  time-piece.  There  is  a  trite  truth  about 
time-pieces,  which  we  may  say  holds  as  a  rule^  to 
wit,  that  cheap  time-pieces  are  poor  ones.  Yet  it 
would  be  meaningless  to  ask  for  a  mechanical  ex- 
planation of  this  law,  for  the  mechanical  imperfec- 
tion of  the  cheap  sun  dial  bears  no  resemblance  what- 

85 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

ever  to  the  mechanical  imperfection  of  the  cheap 
watch.  The  former  may  be  a  poor  time-keeper  be- 
cause inexpensively  (and  so  grossly)  graduated 5 
the  latter  because  the  escapement  is  inexpensively 
(and  so  crudely)  constructed.  So  it  is  in  the  an- 
imal world.  Of  its  members  we  may  lay  down  the 
rule,  say,  that  each  must  eat  if  it  would  live,  but  the 
physics  and  chemistry  of  nutrition  in  an  oak  tree  are 
so  different  from  the  physics  and  chemistry  of  nutri- 
tion in  a  human  being,  that  if  anyone  were  to  ask  for 
a  mechanical  explanation  of  this  rule  we  could  not 
offer  it,  or  rather  we  should  have  to  offer  a  different 
one  for  each  type  of  organism  we  considered.  These 
examples  will  be  sufficient  to  illustrate  the  sense  of 
the  saying,  "  Beings  whose  nature  is  not  capable  of 
mechanical  definition  cannot  be  subjected  to  mechan- 
ical law." 

But  we  said  further,  that  the  laws  to  which  such 
beings  were  subject  were  of  a  peculiar  nature,  and  it 
is  particularly  important  to  point  out  one  respect  in 
which  these  laws  differ  from  the  mechanical.  Such 
laws  as  we  find  controlling  the  behavior  of  organ- 
isms, for  example,  are  of  the  kind  that  may  be  called 
laws  of  furfose.  We  explain,  that  is  to  say,  the  con- 
duct of  organisms  in  terms  of  the  end  or  purpose  for 
the  sake  of  which  that  conduct  has  taken  place.  This 
holds  from  the  lowest  biological  functioning  to  the 

86 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

highest  form  of  deliberate  human  behavior.  If  we 
consider  the  explanation  which  our  author  offers  of 
the  conduct  of  his  unhappy  hero,  we  see  that  in  the 
end  he  has  been  exclusively  interested  in  pointing  out 
the  motives  to  which  the  young  man  reacted.  To 
point  out  motives  is  simply  to  recognize  the  end  for 
the  sake  of  which  the  act  is  accomplished.  Now, 
although  this  type  of  explanation  is  in  daily  use 
among  all  men  of  all  times,  it  was  not  erected  into 
a  scientific  system  before  the  reflections  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle  had  shown  of  what  extension  it  was  suscep- 
tible. Aristotle  in  particular  is  responsible  for  hav- 
ing pushed  to  the  very  limit  the  notion  that  the 
greater  part  of  nature's  happenings  can  be  explained 
in  terms  of  the  end  for  the  sake  of  which  they  occur. 
The  whole  drama  of  nature  was  to  him  what  that  of 
organic  life  is  to  most  of  us,  the  struggle  of  individ- 
ual beings  to  accomplish  their  natural  purposes. 
But,  interested  as  Aristotle  was  in  pushing  this  con- 
cept of  purpose  in  nature  to  the  limit,  he  could  not 
blind  himself  to  the  fact  that  no  purpose  could  be 
found  in  nature  which  was  always  and  invariably  ac- 
complished or  attained  by  the  beings  whose  nature 
it  was  to  struggle  for  it.  Consequently,  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  saying  that  "  laws  of  nature  (by  which  he 
meant  of  laws  of  purpose)  were  descriptions  of 
what  happens  always,  or  for  the  most  part."    That  is 

87 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

to  say,  they  pointed  out  the  behavior  that  was  normal, 
but  not  free  from  exception.  Nature  was  full  of  the 
accidental,  of  the  abortive  j  and  although  later 
science  did  its  best  to  exclude  this  notion  of  the  ac- 
cidental in  nature's  happenings,  the  effort  was  uni- 
formly unsuccessful  and,  I  think,  wrongly  inspired. 
For  it  is  exactly  to  the  circumstance  that  laws  of  pur- 
pose are  statements  of  average  and  not  of  unexcep- 
tional fact,  that  they  owe  their  scientific  value  as 
labor-saving  devices.  And  what  is  perhaps  of  more 
interest  in  the  present  connection,  it  is  to  this  very 
lack  of  rigor  in  the  laws  governing  animal  and  hu- 
man behavior  that  we  owe  our  right  to  regard  the 
individual  to  which  they  apply  as  free. 

In  this  respect  the  contrast  between  laws  of  pur- 
pose with  the  situation  of  the  things  to  which  they 
apply,  and  the  laws  of  mechanics  with  the  predica- 
ment of  the  things  they  govern,  is  complete.  For 
example,  the  most  inveterate  statistician  will  hardly 
venture  beyond  the  point  of  asserting  that  the  man 
of  alcoholic  heredity  will  for  the  most  part  be  unable 
to  resist  the  attraction  of  drink.  Yet  sometimes  he 
will  be  able  to,  for  sometimes  he  does  resist.  Can 
one  conceive  of  the  student  of  mechanics  contenting 
himself  with  the  result  that  bodies  generally  fall  to 
earth  with  an  acceleration  of  thirty-two  feet  per 
second?      During    all    the    while    Mercury's    un- 

2>2, 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

orthodox  behavior  baffled  Newtonian  physics,  could 
any  astronomer  be  found  suggesting  that  per- 
haps this  was  a  case  of  exceptional  gravitation?  As 
with  heredity,  so  with  all  the  other  so-called  forces 
our  author  brings  to  bear  upon  the  conduct  of 
his  hero,  giving  in  the  end  the  illusion  of  mechan- 
ically determined  action.  Heredity,  environment, 
education,  serve  their  purpose  well  enough  as  terms 
that  point  out  an  analogy  between  the  ends  that  at- 
tract beings  of  like  history,  but  they  yield  only  an  ex- 
pectation of  the  normal,  not  an  assurance  of  the  inevi- 
table. Nor  could  any  increase  of  statistical  data  of 
this  kind  do  more  than  give  us  the  materials  for  a 
closer  calculus  of  probabilities.  It  is  for  the  reason 
that  all  the  laws  which  apply  to  human  conduct  are 
of  this  statistical  nature,  that,  being  permanently 
unable  to  predict  it,  we  must  regard  it  as  free.  And 
to  be  free  to  attain  or  not  to  attain  a  given  end,  is  to 
be  responsible,  is  to  possess  the  first  condition  of  a 
moral  nature.  Nor,  in  attaining  to  this  insight  have 
we  sacrificed  aught  of  our  mechanical  ideal.  Only, 
who  cares  that  atoms  may  neither  be  saved  nor 
damned,  if  the  beings  they  so  fleetingly  compose  may 
be  both?  One  might  almost  say  that  moral  beings 
pass  over  the  surface  of  mechanism  as  waves  upon 
the  face  of  the  waters.  But  they  constitute  its  beauty 
and  its  terror. 

89 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

May  we  not  then  sum  up  our  conclusions  in  some 
such  form  as  this?  —  Mechanical  laws  do  completely 
determine  the  conduct  of  everything  to  which  they 
may  be  applied,  but  they  cannot  be  applied  to  an 
animate  being,  since  no  mechanical  definition  of  such 
a  being  is  possible.  Laws  of  purpose  can  be  applied 
to  such  a  being,  but  they  do  not  completely  determine 
his  conduct.  It  is  because  the  only  law  which  can 
thus  apply  to  a  human  being  does  not  necessitate  his 
behavior,  that  we  are  obliged  to  regard  that  behavior 
as  free  and  the  being  himself  as  responsible.  The 
most  that  we  can  do  in  terms  of  such  laws  is  to  cal- 
culate the  chances  for  or  against  the  individual's  suc- 
cess, for  or  against  his  ultimate  worth. 

Here  let  us  stop.  Our  discussion  shows  signs  of 
falling  into  the  abstract  and  mathematical,  and  one 
may  wonder  whether  anything  practical  can  come  of 
it.  One  will  recall  the  unhappy  disciple  of  Adrien 
Sixte,  and  will  ask  onself :  What  answer,  after  all, 
are  we  return  to  his  cry,  "  De  prof  undis !  "  Can  we 
offer  him  any  solace  in  his  wretchedness?  I  think 
we  can,  only  it  is  not  the  kind  of  solace  he  asks  for, 
nor  can  it  come  from  the  direction  in  which  he  seeks 
it.  I  should  be  inclined  to  say  to  him,  to  Fichte  in 
his  Spinozistic  mood,  to  any  other  over  whom  the 
mechanical  ideal  hangs  heavily:  This  ideal  is  a  safe 

9P 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

guide  in  all  thinking  for  which  it  has  a  meaning  5 
no  atom  in  your  body  nor  out  of  it,  but  what  is  de- 
termined by  mechanical  necessity  j  but  the  sum  of 
these  atoms  is  not  youj  there  is  a  difference  between 
the  whole  we  call  a  man,  and  the  sum  of  the  atoms 
that  make  up  the  machine  that  is  to  him.  These 
atoms  may  come  and  go,  the  man  remains.  What 
constitutes  his  nature  as  a  living  being,  an  animal, 
a  man,  can  receive  no  definition  in  terms  of  the 
atoms  now  in  his  body,  nor  those  that  may  later  take 
their  place.  You  as  living,  as  animal,  as  man,  can  be 
defined  only  in  terms  of  the  ends  common  to  the  in- 
dividuals of  these  classes.  In  so  far  as  thus  natured, 
you  fall  under  laws  not  of  a  mechanical  order.  They 
are  laws  of  average  which  determine  not  you,  but 
your  chances  of  accomplishing  the  ends  that  define 
your  being.  In  so  far  as  you  accomplish  such  ends, 
you  are  good  of  your  kindj  in  so  far  as  you  fail,  you 
are  evil,  —  and  if  you  fail  egregiously  enough,  you 
are  a  monster.  The  most  your  self -analysis  could 
have  made  out  by  the  way  of  excuse  is  that  the 
chances  were  against  you.  And  this  indeed  you  may 
have  made  out,  for  who  could  maintain  that  all  men 
have  equal  chances  in  this  world?  But  to  have  had 
the  chances  against  you,  is  not  to  have  been  deter- 
mined as  a  falling  rock  is  determined^  there  is  no 
chance  for  it. 

91 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

In  the  most  mechanical  system,  then,  there  is,  so 
long  as  classification  of  its  parts  in  terms  of  purpose 
is  possible,  a  distinction  between  good  and  bad,  with 
enough  freedom  to  make  this  distinction  meaningful. 
But  such  a  philosophy  may  still  seem  hard.  Even 
to  have  the  chances  against  one,  is  not  this  a  gloomy 
situation?  Is  there,  then,  no  supreme  end  to  ac- 
complish which  all  men's  chances  are  equal,  so  that 
at  each  moment  of  life  the  road  to  perfection  is 
equally  open  to  all,  and  equally  wide  for  all?  We 
know  how  many  and  how  beautiful  the  dreams  of 
such  a  world-view,  recorded  in  man's  long  history. 
To  judge  their  rationality  is  for  a  deeper  insight  than 
mine.  But  be  they  real  or  be  they  dreams,  there  is 
yet  one  voice  from  the  past  whose  sanity  comes  home 
to  us.  It  is  that  of  our  old  philosopher  of  Koenigs- 
berg,  which  keeps  repeating  at  this  moment  the  sen- 
tence, "  There  is  nothing  good  but  a  good  will." 
With  this  saying  of  Kant's  I  should  even  hope  to 
breathe  inspiration  into  the  souls  that  cry,  "  De  pro- 
fundis!  "  My  last  word  to  them  would  be:  Trouble 
yourselves  with  nothing  but  to  make  the  best  of  the 
chances  that  are  left  to  you.  There  is  nothing  good 
but  a  good  will. 

I  would  willingly  take  it  as  evidence  that  the  in- 
stinct of  the  artist  and  the  reflection  of  the  philoso- 

92 


A    DISCIPLE    OF    SPINOZA 

pher  are  not  unsympathetic,  that  when  Bourget's 
Disciple  is  at  last  brought  out  of  his  ordeal,  it  is  not 
to  be  comforted  with  the  longed-for  assurance  that 
all  is  necessitated  in  the  soul  5  but  rather  to  find  for 
himself  the  way  to  redemption  by  making  the  best  — 
the  tragic  best  —  of  the  chances  that  are  left  him. 


93 


IV 


DAVID    HUME 
1711-1776 


DAVID    HUME 

The  characters  that  have  occupied  us  on  two  pre- 
vious occasions,  different  as  they  are,  have  yet  this  in 
common  j  that  their  most  passionate  interest  was  cen- 
tred in  God,  and  their  theory  of  what  man  is  and 
ought  to  be  depended  upon  the  likeness  in  which 
God  in  the  end  appeared  to  them. 

I  have  felt  that  our  illustrations  of  modern 
thought  would  be  incomplete,  were  I  not  to  include 
in  the  series  an  example  of  ^n  attejupLlOL  work  out 
the  duty  and  destjny  of  man  without  waiting  for  an 
insight  into  the  mystery  of  God.  It  is  the  more  ad- 
visable that  we  examine  one  such  character,  that  this 
way  of  thinking  is  neither  newly  invented,  nor  yet 
grown  out  of  fashion. 

We  recall  that  Lucretius,  the  enthusiastic  disciple 
of  Epicurus,  claimed  for  his  master  the  glory  of 
haying Jif ted  frorn,  tbe^world  the  terror  of  the  gods, 
of  haymg  left  man  free  to  study  his  own  nature  and 
to  work  out  his  own  happiness.  And  I  find  on  my 
shelves  a  recent  work  that  bears  the  title  "  Morals 
without  the  Sanctions  of  Religion,"  one  of  many  that 
might  be  cited  whose  purpose  is  to  study  the  good^of 

97 


DAVID    HUME 

man  with  out,  making  it^dependent  on  God.  It  is, 
then,  as  an  expression  of  a  common  enough  idea, 
but  as  an  uncommonly  good  expression  of  this  idea, 
that  I  have  settled  upon  David  Hume  for  our  third 
illustration  of  modern  thought. 

It  has  for  some  time  been  rather  the  fashion  to 
find  the  grounds  of  a  man's  scientific  beliefs  in  his 
personality  and  in  the  character  of  the  environment 
in  which  he  lives.  And  doubtless  thinking,  like  any 
other  activity,  has  its  psychology,  an  insight  into 
which  is  helpful  enough,  though  it  is  notoriously 
easy  to  find  that  characteristic  apres  cowp  which  we 
should  never  have  been  able  to  predict  beforehand. 

When  I  say,  then,  that  Hume  had  many  human 
traits  reminding  us  of  the  Philosophers  of  the 
Garden  whose  science  is  so  sympathetic  with  his  own, 
it  must  not  be  supposed  that  only  such  as  are  of  like 
easy  habit  of  body  and  companionable  temper  of 
mind  should  take  to  his  principles.  But  it  is  interest- 
ing to  note,  after  having  followed  the  furious  career 
of  Bruno,  looked  in  on  the  sober  reclusion  of  Spi- 
noza, that  a  different  type  of  man  may  utter  great 
thoughts 3  the  type  that  could  look  back,  at  fifty- 
eight  years,  on  a  life  well  filled  with  profitable  in- 
dustry, and  forward  to  one  thus  comfortably  pic- 
tured in  a  letter  to  a  friend:  "  I  have  been  settled 

98 


DAVID    HUME 

here  [in  Edinburgh]  for  two  months,  and  am  here 
body  and  soul,  without  casting  the  least  thought  of 
regret  to  London,  or  even  Paris.  I  live  still,  and 
must  for  a  twelvemonth,  in  my  old  house  in  James's 
Court  which  is  very  cheerful  and  even  elegant,  but 
too  small  to  display  my  great  talent  for  cookery,  the 
science  to  which  I  intend  to  addict  the  remaining 
years  of  my  life!  I  have  just  now,  lying  on  the  table 
before  me,  a  receipt  for  making  soufe  a  la  reiney 
copied  with  my  own  handj  for  beef  and  cabbage  (a 
charming  dish)  and  old  mutton  and  old  claret  no- 
body excels  me.  I  make  also  sheep-head  broth  in 
a  manner  that  Mr.  Keith  speaks  of  it  for  eight  days 
after  J  and  the  Due  de  Nivernois  would  bind  himself 
apprentice  to  my  lass  to  learn  it.  I  have  already  sent 
a  challenge  to  David  MoncreifF:  you  will  see  that  in 
a  twelvemonth  he  will  take  to  writing  history,  the 
field  I  have  deserted;  for  as  to  the  giving  of  dinners, 
he  can  now  have  no  further  pretensions.  I  should 
have  made  very  bad  use  of  my  abode  in  Paris  if  I 
could  not  get  the  better  of  a  mere  provincial  like 
him.  All  my  friends  encourage  me  in  this  ambition, 
as  thinking  it  will  redound  very  much  to  my  honor." 
These  "  friends  "  to  whom  Hume  refers,  were  at 
that  time,  as  they  had  been  throughout  his  life,  the 
best  of  good  company,  that  is,  the  kind  for  whom  a 
good  dinner  would  have  been  nothing  had  not  good 

99 


DAVID    HUME 

conversation  been  its  sauce,  but  for  whom  the  sauce 
was  none  the  worse  for  dressing  out  a  good  dinner. 
In  such  good  company,  it  is  not  a  great  matter  that 
Hume  should  have  been  free  of  pleasant  sallies 
after  the  manner  of  the  letter  I  have  quoted.  It 
throws  a  higher  light  on  his  character  when  we  find 
him  preparing  to  receive  his  last,  the  unbidden  guest 
in  the  same  cheerful  humor.  "  I  now  reckon  upon  a 
speedy  dissolution,"  he  writes  at  the  conclusion  of 
his  little  sketch  "  My  own  Life."  "  I  have  suflFered 
very  little  pain  from  my  disorder  3  and  what  is  more 
strange,  have,  notwithstanding  the  great  decline  of 
my  person,  never  suffered  a  moment's  abatement  of 
spirits  J  insomuch  that  were  I  to  name  the  period  of 
my  life  which  I  should  most  choose  to  pass  over 
again,  I  might  be  tempted  to  point  to  this  latter 
period.  I  possess  the  same  ardor  as  ever  in  study, 
and  the  same  gaiety  in  company.  I  consider,  besides, 
that  a  man  of  sixty-five,  by  dying,  cuts  off  only  a 
few  years  of  infirmities  3  and  though  I  see  many 
symptoms  of  my  literary  reputation's  breaking  out 
at  last  with  additional  lustre,  I  knew  that  I  could 
have  but  a  few  years  to  enjoy  it.  It  is  difficult  to  be 
more  detached  from  life  than  I  am  at  present." 

And  there  follows  a  characterization  of  himself 
that  could  indeed  be  hardly  more  detached  were  it 
written  by  a  stranger.    "  I  am,"  he  says,  "  or  rather 

100 


DAVID    HUME 

was  (for  that  style  I  must  now  use  in  speaking  of 
myself,  which  emboldens  me  the  more  to  speak  my 
sentiments)  j  I  was,  I  say,  a  man  of  mild  disposi- 
tions, of  command  of  temper,  of  an  open  social  and 
cheerful  humor,  capable  of  attachment,  but  little 
susceptible  of  enmity,  and  of  great  moderation  in  all 
my  passions.  .  .  .  My  company  was  not  unaccep- 
table to  the  young  and  careless,  as  well  as  to  the 
studious  and  literary:  and  as  I  took  a  particular  pleas- 
ure in  the  company  of  modest  women,  I  had  no 
reason  to  be  displeased  with  the  reception  I  met  with 
from  them.  .  .  .  My  friends  never  had  occasion  to 
vindicate  any  one  circumstance  of  my  character  and 
conduct:  not  but  that  the  zealots,  we  may  well  sup- 
pose, would  have  been  glad  to  invent  and  propagate 
any  story  to  my  disadvantage,  but  they  could  never 
find  any  which  they  thought  would  wear  the  face  of 
probability.  I  cannot  say  there  is  no  vanity  in  mak- 
ing this  funeral  oration  of  myself,  but  I  hope  it  is 
not  a  misplaced  onej  and  this  is  a  matter  of  fact 
which  is  easily  cleared  and  ascertained." 

It  is  hardly  to  convict  this  worthy  Scot  of  mis- 
statement, to  point  out  that  his  pleasing  picture,  nf 
good  will  toward  all  men  omits  to  jrecord  his  two 
Jiatreds3  hatreds  as  whole-hearted  and_  constant  as 
one  could   wish.     One   was   for   those   he  called 
j[<jTriftRfg3^>  the,  nther  y^as  reserved  for  Englishmen. 

lOI 


DAVID    HUME 

"  O!  how  I  long  to  see  America  and  the  East  Indies 
revolted,  totally  and  finally  —  the  revenue  reduced 
to  half  —  public  credit  fully  discredited  by  bank- 
ruptcy —  the  third  of  London  in  ruins,  and  the  ras- 
cally mob  subdued!  I  think  I  am  not  too  old  to 
despair  of  being  witness  to  all  these  things."  This, 
to  his  friend  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot  in  1768.  It  is  curious 
to  note  that  Hume  lived  just  long  enough  to  have 
heard  of  the  signing  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, 

If,  then,  something  of  the  nonchalance  with  which. 
Hume  throws  off  comfortable  tradition  is  due  to  his 
personal  character,  much  may  be  gathered  respecting 
his  motives  for  so  treating  common  opinion  from 
a  study  of  his  philosophical  ancestry.  For  Hume  is 
the  fine  fleur  of  a  growth  flourishing  in  the  England 
of  the  17th  and  i8th  centuries,  which  in  contrast  to 
the  Rationalism  of  the  Continent,  is  usually  called 
Empiricism.  We  find  anticipations  of  an  empirical 
philosophy  in  Bacon  and  Hobbesj  but  perhaps  we 
should  regard  John  Locke  as  the  real  founder  of  the 
school.  Rationalism,  as  we  saw  in  connection  with 
Descartes  and  Spinoza,  was  inspired  by  the  example 
of  the  mathematicians  to  hope  that  all  science  might 
be,  as  their  science  seemed  to  be,  deduced  from  axioms 
called  self-evident.     These  axioms  appeared  to  be 

102 


DAVID    HUME 

something  more  than  the  mere  summing  up  of  expe- 
riences. Between  the  undependable  predictions  of 
a  weather  prophet,  who  has  frequently  observed  that 
a  "  twinge  of  rheumatism  means  coming  storm,"  and 
the  confidence  of  the  geometer  that  if  two  angles  of 
a  triangle  measure  120°  the  other  will  be  found  to 
measure  60°,  there  seemed  to  the  rationalist  not 
merely  a  difference  in  degree  of  certainty,  but  a  dif- 
ference in  kind  of  evidence.  The  former  knowledge, 
unsatisfactory  as  it  was,  could  only  come  after  expe- 
rience j  the  latter,  beautiful  in  its  precision,  would 
seem  to  be  at  the  command  of  a  thoughtful  man  be- 
fore experience.  Hence,  for  the  rationalist,  experi- 
ence fell  to  the  level  of  a  mere  suggestor  of  truth, 
an  awakener  of  thought  j  reason  alone  could  demon- 
strate the  suggestion. 

In  complete  contrast  with  such  a  view-point,  the 
empiricist  came  in  the  end  to  make  experience  the 
sole  test  of  truth,  even  of  such  truth  as  the  math- 
ematician possessed.  Jf  Jhe^ksue^s  between  taking 
thought  respecting  all  things  with  the  rationalist,  or 
everywhere  trusting  to  observation  with  the  empir- 
icist, it  is  clear  the  latter  has  plausibility  on  his  side. 
Who,  closing  his  eyes  and  reasoning  it  out,  could 
learn  that  there  were  just  eight  planets,  and  not 
sevea  or  nine?  If  we  must  do  one  thing  or  the 
other  exclusively,  is  it  not  easier  to  imagine  that  the 

103 


DAVID    HUME 

axioms  of  geometry  embody  the  experience  of  the 
jges  and  nothing  more,  than  to  suppose  that 
equipped  only  with  the  pure  reason,  i.e.,  with  the 
principles  of  logic,  one  could  discover  the  one  think- 
able world  to  be  that  in  which  a  person  that  is  "  I  " 
should  exist  with  a  sheet  of  paper  this  moment  be- 
fore him  and  a  fly  buzzing  by  his  ear? 

So  it  seemed  more  and  more  as  empiricism  was 
developed  at  the  hands  of  Locke,  Berkeley  and 
Hume.  Belief,  we  find_  Hume  maintaining  in  the 
end,  is  all  of  a  kindj  it  is  the  inference  from  an  ac- 
tual impression  (A)  to  an  expected  impression  (B), 
based  on  the  remembered  experience  that_A  has 

aliKays.,in.,..the past  been  followed  by^.    .Since-thi^L 

past  experience  is  limited  and  since  the  remembrance 

of  it  may  be  defective,  the  belief  based  on  the  two 

,111,1 I   I  -..   Ill'  — 

can  neyer^amount  to  certainty. 

Such  an  attitude  may  well  be  called  sceptical  when 
contrasted  with  the  older  rationalism,  in  that  it 
denies  the  possibility  of  cojiiplete-xerta4nty.iiij^ny 
field  of  science,  substituting  as  the  ideal  of  scientific 
evidence  an  ever-increa^ng__balani:^e--of--^^babli£y;m 
favor  of  the  opinion  we  are  constrained  to  accept. 
But  though  to  think  of  our  body  of  accepted  opin- 
ion after  this  manner  is  to  induce  an  extreme  flex- 
ibility of  the  imagination,  which  must  be  pre^gxfed 
toxonceive  that  the  firmest  truth  may  be  untrue  and 

104 


DAVID    HUME 

has  only  a  more  or  less  inadequate  array  of  facts  be- 
hind which  to  defend  itself,  yet  it  does  not  follow 
that  nature  is  a  fantastic  dream,  without  order  and 
coherence.  Jndeed,  that  experience  which  is  to.. be 
our  guide  from  now  on^  assures  us.. Qf.4u&t.,the  con- 
Jtrary,  and  the  new  evidence  that  would  be  required 
to  make  us  admit  that  an  event  in  exception  to  any 
well-founded  law  had  really  occurred  would  have 
to  be  overwhelming. 

Nowhere  does  Hume's  faith  in  the  evidence  upon 
which  the  best  tested  uniformities  of  experience  base 
their  claim  to  acceptance  as  nature's  laws,  show  itself 
more  clearly  than  in  his  treatment  of  miracles.  To 
an  analysis  of  the  evidence  for  such  miracles  as  his- 
tory records  he  devotes  an  entire  section  of  his 
"  Enquiry    Concerning    Human    Understanding," 

^''^^^\  .      .  '^f\j> 

"  A  miracle  "  he  there  writes,  "  is  a  violation  of  /^'*7>  ,a^^ 


thejg-.ws.of  nature^  and  as  a  firm  and  unalterable  ex-^-^"^^  ;x^      ., 
.^erience  has  established  these  laws,  the  proof  against  '^    .   ,)r^ 
a  miracle,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  fact,  is  zs(,     Jjy^ 
^entire  as  any  argument  from  experience  can  possibly    j 
be  irnagined.    Why  is  it  more  than  probable  that  all 
men  must  diej  that  lead  cannot,  of  itself,  remain  sus- 
pended in  the  air  3  that  fire  consumes  wood,  and  is 
extinguished  by  water  j  unless  it  be  that  these  events 

105 


DAVID    HUME 

are  found  agreeable  to  the  laws  of  nature,  and  there 

is  required  a  violation  of  these  laws,  or  in  other 

words,  a  miracle  to  prevent  them?     Nothing  is  ever 

esteemed  a  miracle  if -it^ever. happen  in  the  common 

course  of  nature4=^=..=*=jrh£re__mus^^^  therefore,  be 

a  uniform  experience  against  every  miraculou^jevent, 

otherwise  the  event  would  not  merit  thataj)pellation. 

And  as  a  uniform  experience  amounts  to  proof,  there 

isTiere  a  direct  and  full  froofy  from  the  nature  of 

the  fact,  against  the  existence  of  any  miracle  j  nor  can 

such  proof  be  destroyed  or  the  miracle  rendered 

credible,  but  by  an  opposite  proof  which  is  superior. 

"  The  plain  consequence  is   (and  it  is  a  general 

.  i^^iajum)    maxim  worthy  of  our  attention),  ^  Tharfno  testimony 

^  '^'^-^    is  sufficient  to  establish  a  miracle,  unless  the  testi- 

*^*  "^  I'^niony  be  of  such  kind  that  its  falsehood  would  be 

^    ^        "  more  miraculous  than  the  fact  which  it  endeavors 

to  establish.'  "    i  And  Hume   illustrates  —  "  When 


%kArJ 


anyone  tells  me  that  he  saw  a  dead  man  restored  to 
life,  I  immediately  consider  with  myself  whether 
it  is  more  probable  that  this  person  should  either 
deceive  or  be  deceived,  or  that  the  fact  which  he 
relates  should  really  have  happend.  I  weigh  the 
one  miracle  against  the  other  j  and  according  to  the 
superiority  which  I  discover  I  pronounce  my  decision, 
and  always  reject  the  greater  miracle.  If  the  false- 
hood of  his  testimony  would  be  more  miraculous 

io6 


DAVID    HUME 

than  the  event  which  he  relates  j  then,  and  not  till 
then,  can  he  pretend  to  command  my  belief  or 
opinion." 

As  a  specimen  of  the  manner  in  which  Hume 
would  have  one  weigh  the  probabilitites  for  and 
against  miracles,  we  may  take  the  oft-cited  passage 
with  which  the  discussions  closes.  "...  Let  us  ex- 
amine those  miracles  related  in  scripture  ^  and  not  to 
lose  ourselves  in  too  wide  a  field,  let  us  confine  our- 
selves to  such  as  we  find  in  the  Pentateuch^  which  we 
shall  examine,  .  .  .  not  as  the  word  or  testimony  of 
God  himself,  but  as  the  production  of  a  mere  human 
writer  and  historian.  Here,  then,  we  are  first  to 
consider  a  book  presented  to  us  by  a  barabarous  and 
ignorant  people,  written  in  an  age  when  they  are  still 
more  barbarous,  and  in  all  probability  long  after  the 
facts  which  it  relates,  corroborated  by  no  concurring 
testimony,  and  resembling  those  fabulous  accounts 
which  every  nation  gives  of  its  origin.  £  Upon  read- 
ing this  book,  we  find  it  full  of  prodigies  and  mir- 
acles. It  gives  us  an  account  of  a  state  of  the  world 
and  of  human  nature  entirely  different  from  the 
present  j  of  our  fall  from  that  state  3  of  the  age  of 
man  extended  to  nearly  a  thousand  years  j  of  the 
destruction  of  the  world  by  a  deluge  j  of  the  arbi- 
trary choice  of  one  people  as  the  favorites  of  heaven, 
and  that  people  the  countrymen  of  the  author  j  of 

107 


DAVID    HUME 

their  deliverance  from  bondage  by  prodigies  the 
most  astonishing  imaginable:  I  desire  any  one  to  lay 
his  hand  upon  his  heart,  and  after  a  serious  consid- 
eration declare  whether  he  thinks  that  the  falsehood 
of  such  a  book,  supported  by  such  testimony,  would 
be  more  extraordinary  and  miraculous  than  all  the 
miracles  it  relates  j  which  is,  however,  necessary  to 
make  it  to  be  received,  according  to  the  measure  of 
probablity  above  established^^! 

Higher  critical  ability  and  wider  knowledge  have 
since  Hume's  day  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the  in- 
terpretation of  such  documents  as  the  books  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  it  is  not  as  an  ethnologist  that 
he  has  any  claim  upon  our  attention.  But  the  cita- 
tion will  serve  to  show  that  the  skepticism  of  the 
empirical  method  is  not  of  a  kind  greatly  to  disturb 
our  confidence  in  the  commonly  accepted  laws  of 
nature.  It  will  further  serve  to  establish  one  point 
respecting  Hume's  theology,  a  point  which  through- 
out all  his  hesitating  utterances  on  this  subject  he 
never  abandons,  that,  namely,  if  aught Jn  thejyorld 
as  we  know  it  points  to  a  God,^it  is  not  the  strange 
and  exceptional,  but  the  regular  and  law-abiding  as- 
pects of  nature._  To  him,  a  wonder-working  God  is 
a  superstition  of  the  ages  of  ignorance  and  of  the 
ignorant  of  all  ages. 

"  Even  at  this  day,  and  in  Europe,"  he  writes  in 

io8 


DAVID    HUME 

his  "  Natural  History  of  Religion,"  "  ask  any  of  the 
vulgar,  why  he  believes  in  an  omnipotent  creator  of 
the  worlds  he  will  never  mention  the  beauty  of  final 
causes,  of  which  he  is  wholly  ignorant.  He  will  not 
hold  out  his  hand,  and  bid  you  contemplate  the  sup- 
pleness and  variety  of  the  joints  in  his  fingers,  their 
bending  all  one  way,  the  counterpoise  which  they 
receive  from  the  thumb,  the  softness  and  fleshy  parts 
of  the  inside  of  his  hand,  with  all  other  circum- 
stances which  render  that  member  fit  for  the  use  to 
which  it  is  destined.  To  these  he  has  been  long  ac- 
customed, and  he  beholds  them  with  listlessness  and 
unconcern.  He  will  tell  you  of  the  sudden  and 
unexpected  death  of  such  a  one  5  the  fall  and  bruise 
of  such  another  j  the  excessive  drought  of  this 
season  5  the  cold  and  rains  of  another.  These  he 
ascribes  to  the  immediate  operations  of  providence  j 
and  such  events  as  with  good  reasoners  are  the  chief 
difficulties  in  admittting  a  supreme  intelligence,  are 
with  him  the  sole  arguments  for  it."    j 

But,  he  adds  on  this  occasion,  "  many  theists, 
even  the  most  zealous  and  refined,  have  denied  a 
f articular  providence,  and  have  asserted  that  the 
Sovereign  mind  or  first  principle  of  all  things,  having 
fixed  general  laws,  by  which  nature  is  governed, 
gives  free  and  uninterrupted  course  to  these  laws,  and 
disturbs  not,  at  every  turn,  the  settled  order  of  events 

109 


DAVID    HUME 

by  particular  volitions.  From  the  beautiful  connec- 
tion, say  they,  and  rigid  observance  of  established 
rules,  we  draw  the  chief  argument  for  theism^  and 
from  the  same  principles  are  enabled  to  answer  the 
principal  objections  against  it." 

It  is  in  this  "  refined  "  variety  that  we  shall  ex- 
pect to  find  Hume  in  the  end,  if  among  theists  at  all. 
Meanwhile  it  will  be  interesting  to  follow  up  this 
reference  to  a  particular  providence,  belief  in  which 
Hume  associates  so  closely  with  the  acceptance  of 
miracles. 

Section  XI  of  Hume's  "  Enquiry  Concerning  Hu- 
man Understanding,"  is  entitled  "  Of  a  Providence 
and  of  a  Future  State."  A  literary  device  puts  the 
argument  in  the  mouth  of  a  friend  who  has  been  in- 
vited by  one  referred  to  in  the  first  person  to  imagine 
himself  making  a  speech  for  Epicurus  before  an 
audience  of  enlightened  Athenians.  Accepting  the 
challenge  the  friend  opens  his  apology  as  follows: 
"  The  religious  philosophers  [O,  ye  Athenians],  not 
satisfied  with  the  tradition  of  your  forefathers  and 
doctrine  of  your  priests  (in  which  I  willingly  acqui- 
esce) indulge  a  rash  curiosity  in  trying  how  far  they 
can  establish  religion  on  the  principles  of  reason  j 
and  they  thereby  excite,  instead  of  satisfying,  the 
doubts  which  naturally  arise  from  a  diligent  and 

no 


DAVID    HUME 

scrutinous  enquiry.  They  paint  in  the  most  magnifi- 
cent colors  the  order,  beauty  and  wise  arrangement 
of  the  universe  j  and  then  ask,  if  such  a  glorious  dis- 
play of  intelligence  could  proceed  from  the  fortui- 
tous concourse  of  atoms,  or  if  chance  could  produce 
what  the  greatest  genius  can  never  sufficiently  ad- 
mire. I  shall  not  examine  the  justness  of  this  argu- 
ment. I  shall  allow  it  to  be  as  solid  as  my  antagonists 
and  accusers  can  desire.  It  is  sufficient  if  I  can  prove, 
from  this  very  reasoning,  that  the  question  is  entirely 
speculative  and  that  when  I  deny  a  providence  and  a 
future  state,  I  undermine  not  the  foundations  of 
society,  but  advance  principles  which  they  them- 
selves, upon  their  own  topics,  if  they  argue  consist- 
ently, must  allow  to  be  solid  and  satisfactory. 

"  You  then,  who  are  my  accusers,  have  acknowl- 
edged that  their  chief  or  sole  argument  for  a  divine 
existence  is  derived  from  the  order  of  nature.  .  .  . 
From  the  order  of  the  work  you  infer  that  there  must 
have  been  project  and  forethought  in  the  workman." 
Now,  "  if  the  cause  be  known  only  by  the  effect,  we 
never  ought  to  ascribe  to  it  any  qualities  beyond  what 
are  precisely  requisite  to  produce  the  effect.  .  .  .  No 
one,  merely  from  the  sight  of  one  of  Zeuxis's  pic- 
tures, could  know  that  he  was  also  a  statuary  or 
architect.  .  .  . 

"  Allowing,   therefore,   the  gods   to   be   authors 

III 


DAVID    HUME 

of  the  existence  or  order  of  the  universe,  it  follows 
that  they  posses  that  precise  degree  of  power,  intel- 
ligence and  benevolence  which  appears  in  their  work- 
manship. .  .  .  The  supposition  of  farther  attributes 
is  mere  hypothesis  5  much  more  the  supposition  that 
in  distant  regions  of  space  or  periods  of  time  there 
has  been  or  will  be  a  more  magnificent  display  of 
these  attributes  and  a  scheme  of  administration  more 
suitable  to  such  imaginary  virtues.  .  .  .  Let  your 
gods,  therefore,  O  philospohers,  be  suited  to  the 
present  appearances  of  nature,  and  presume  not  to 
alter  these  appearances  by  arbitrary  suppositions  in 
order  to  suit  them  to  attributes  which  you  so  fondly 
ascribe  to  your  deities." 

And  the  pleader  proceeds  to  show  that  it  is  as  use- 
less to  practice  as  unsupported  by  reason,  to  supple- 
ment the  order  of  things  we  know  by  another  for 
which  there  is  no  evidence. 

"  Are  there  any  marks  of  a  distributive  justice  in 
the.  world?  "  he  puts  it  to  his  hearers.  "  If  you  an- 
swer in  the  affirmative,  I  conclude  that  since  justice 
here  exerts  itself,  it  is  satisfied.  If  you  reply  in  the 
negative,  I  conclude  that  you  have  then  no  reason  to 
ascribe  justice  in  our  sense  of  it  to  the  gods.  If  you 
hold  a  medium  between  affirmation  and  negation  by 
saying  that  the  justice  of  the  gods  at  present  exerts 
itself  in  part,  but  not  in  its  full  extent,  I  answer  that 

112 


DAVID    HUME 

you  have  no  reason  to  give  it  any  particular  extent, 
but  only  as  far  as  you  see  it  at  fresent  exert  itself." 

We  had  rather  anticipated  that  we  should  find 
Hume  among  those  "  zealous  and  refined  theists  " 
who  point  to  the  "  beautiful  connection "  and 
"  single  plan  "  of  nature  as  to  the  ultimate  evidence 
of  an  intelligence  back  of  it.  But  now  that  we  have 
gathered  together  his  important  denials,  we  begin 
to  feel  that  Hume's  "  zeal "  for  theism  must  be  of 
the  most  restrained  order,  that  the  "  refinement " 
of  his  proof  must  approach  attenuation. 

And  so  in  the  end,  it  proves.  Not  but  that  there 
are  emphatic  enough  avowals  of  conviction :  "  The 
whole  frame  of  nature  bespeaks  an  intelligent 
author;"  we  find  it  written,  ^\  and  no  rational  en- 
quirer  can^  after  serious-^reflection,  suspend  his  be- 
lief  a  moment  with  regard  t:Q  the  primary  principles 
.oLgenuine  Theism  and  Relip^ion."  But  this  firmness 
of  assertion  is  not  an  enduring  mood.  Elsewhere  we 
find  at  least  one  "  rational  enquirer  "  suspending  his 
belief,  not  for  a  moment,  but  indefinitely.  The  essay 
which  opens  with  the  passage  just  quoted  concludes 
with  these  words:  ifjrhe  whole  is  a  riddle,  an  enigma, 
an  inexplicable  mystery.  Doubt,  uncertainty,  sus- 
pense of  judgment  appear  the  only  result  of  our 
most  accurate  scrutiny  concerning  this  subject.    But 

"3 


DAVID    HUME 

such  is  the  frailty  of  human  reason,  and  such  the  irre- 
sistible contagion  of  opinion,  that  even  this  deliberate 
doubt  could  scarcely  be  upheld  did  we  not  enlarge 
our  view,  and  opposing  one  species  of  superstition 
to  another,  set  them  a-quarrellingj  while  we  our- 
selves, during  their  fury  and  contention,  happily 
make  our  escape  into^  the  calm,  though  obscure 
regions  of  philosophy."/ 

To  explain  this  flickering  mood,  one  is  abandoned 
to  one's  own  insight  into  the  nature  of  the  man  and 
into  the  conditions  of  his  problem.  In  the  first  con- 
nection, we  make  it  out  that  Hume's  genial  bearing 
before  men  cloaked,  in  a  seemly  well-bred  fash- 
ion, a  deep  seriousness  of  character,  just  as  the  light 
tone  of  certain  of  Plato's  dialogues  is  chosen  as  a  fit 
medium  for  the  setting  forth  of  lofty  ideas  in  polite 
company.  At  sixteen,  before  he  had  acquired  this 
fudeur  of  high  sounding  discourse,  we  find  him  writ- 
ing to  his  friend  Michael  Ramsay  with  the  shame- 
less solemnity  of  a  Roman  sage:  "The  perfectly 
wise  man  that  outbraves  fortune  is  much  greater 
than  the  husbandman  who  slips  by  her,  and  indeed 
that  pastoral  and  saturnian  happiness  I  have  in  a 
great  measure  come  at  just  now  —  "  and  more  of 
the  like!  We  may  safely  take  it  that  the  sage  of 
sixteen  had  not  died  in  the  man  of  sixty,  for  all  that 
the  latter  preferred  to  talk  with  his  worldly  friends 

114 


DAVID    HUME 

of  "  soufe  a  la  reme  and  beef  and  cabbage  (a  charm- 
ing dish).  "  Well,  then,  in  common  with  most  na- 
tures possessed  of  a  like  "  high  seriousness,";  Hume 
would  have  preferred  to  see  the  world  in  a  religious 
light,  would  instinctively  have  looked  in  it  too  for 
high  purpose.  And  this  high  purpose,  he  seemed 
to  see  it  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye  as  one  does  the 
first  star  in  the  twilight.  But  when  he  sought  it 
with  full,  clear  vision  —  it  was  gone.   1 

The  reason  for  this  phenomenon  may,  perhaps, 
lie  in  the  nature  of  the  problem  as  Hume  habitually 
thought  of  it.  It  was,  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  it, 
the  order  and  uniformity  of  nature  that  was  to  reveal 
to  us  an  intelligent  cause.  But  in  daily  life,  as  in 
the  highest  philosophy,  we  recognize  two  kinds  of 
order  and  uniformity  in  our  experience.  It  is  an 
established  rule  that  a  stone  will  fall  to  the  earth, 
that  all  stones  will  fall  in  the  same  way,  that  a  single 
law  describes  a  behavior  common  to  this  stone's  fall- 
ing and  to  the  planets'  swinging  in  their  orbits,  a 
law  we  imagine  to  hold  for  every  particle  of  matter 
in  the  universe  in  its  reaction  toward  every  other, 
and  which  we  call  the  law  of  gravitation.  |  The  law  of 
gravitation  is  about  as  high  an  expression  of  a  uni- 
formity holding  throughout  nature  as  we  have  as  yet 
come  upon.  Such  laws  as  those  of  physics  and  chem- 
istry are  among  the  best  attested  results  of  experi- 

115 


DAVID    HUME 

ence,  and  we  may  stare  at  them  quite  boldly  without 
fear  of  putting  them  out  of  countenance  j  but  then, 
too,  we  may  examine  them  as  intently  as  we  will 
without  finding  in  them  the  revelation  of  an  intel- 
ligence that  framed  them.  For  merely  as  such  laws 
they  make  no  reference  to  a  purgose  to  which  the 
mechanism  they  govern  is  adapted,  j 
/But  there  is  quite  another  type  of  uniformity 
which  we  are  ever  discovering  and  appealing  to, 
if  not  in  the  whole  of  nature,  at  least  in  many  of  its 
parts.  Hume  calls  it  "  unity  of  plan,"  and  he  points 
to  the  general  adaptation  of  the  organs  of  the  body 
to  the  end  of  preserving  the  life  of  that  body.  And 
where  we  find  such  adaptation  of  various  means  to 
a  single  end,  we  ascribe  life  and  even  intelligence  to 
the  organic  whole.  Nature,  from  this  point  of  view, 
is  full  of  life  and  intelligence.  Or,  rather,  should 
we  not  say  it  is  full  of  lives  and  intelligences?  Here 
indeed,  is  the  difficulty:  can  we  treat  the  whole  cos- 
mos  as  one  great  organismpj  Can  we  find  one  su- 
preme end  that  all  the  oBvious  minor  ends  subserve, 
as  they  in  turn  are  served  by  diverse  means?  Or,  as 
another  similar  possibility,  can  we  establish  an  anal- 
ogy between  the  cosmos  and  a  machine  of  human 
invention,  an  implement  of  the  arts,  —  a  watch,  say, 
to  follow  Paley's  argument?     Here,  too,  we  must 


ii6 


DAVID    HUME 

find  a  purpose,  for  a  machine  is  not  merely  a  mechan- 
ism—  it  is  a  mechanism  with  a  function. 

Many  excellent  minds  have  expended  themselves 
on  this  problem,  whose  difficulty  is  supreme,  and  I 
think  we  shall  not  be  far  wrong  in  asserting  that  it 
is  at  moments  when  the  issue  presents  itself  in  this 
way  to  Hume's  mind  that  "  doubt,"  as  he  says,  "  un- 
certainty, suspense  of  judgment  appear  the  only  re- 
sult of  our  most  accurate  scrutiny."  There  seems 
something  beyond  Hume's  usual  imperturbability 
in  the  words  with  which  one  of  his  dialogues  con- 
cludes :  "  Believe  me,  Cleanthes,  the  most  natural 
sentiment  which  a  well-disposed  mind  will  feel  on 
this  occasion,  is  a  longing  desire  and  expectation  that 
Heaven  would  be  pleased  to  dissipate,  at  least  alle- 
viate, this  profound  ignorance,  by  affording  some 
more  particular  revelation  to  mankind,  and  making 
discoveries  of  the  nature,  attributes  and  operations  of 
the  divine  object  of  our  faith."  ^  But  perhaps  this 
is  only  a  phrase,  for  nowhere  else  do  the  lips  of 
Hume  shape  the  words  "  revelation  "  and  "  faith  " 
but  that  the  lines  of  mockery  are  seen  to  form  around 
them. 

In  this  state  of  mind  respecting  theology,  it  is 
inevitable  that  Hume  should  struggle  in  quite  a 

^  Dialogues  Concerning  Natural  Religion,  XII. 

117 


DAVID    HUME 

pagan  spirit  with  the  problem  of  human  wisdom. 
Our  experience  of  life  being  what  it  is,  how  may  man 
most  successfully  attain  to  happiness,  and  what  rela- 
tion has  the  line  of  conduct  which  prudence  would 
recommend  to  that  which  has  been  traditionally  re- 
garded as  virtuous? 

But  first,  has  there  been  any  one  principle  o£ 
conduct  that  defines  it  as  virtuous  j  or  are  there  as 
many  notions  of  virtue  as  there  are  communities 
with  more  or  less  independent  traditions?  It  is  a 
problem  of  ethics  upon  which  every  inquirer  from 
Socrates  down  has  spent  his  best  thought. 

There  is  a  little  dialogue  of  Hume's  that  suggests 
the  nature  of  the  problem  and  hints  at  a  solution  in 
a  way  altogether  charming.  "  My  friend,  Pala- 
medes,"  the  narrator  begins,  "  who  is  as  great  a  ram- 
bler in  his  thoughts  as  in  his  person,  .  .  .  surprised 
me  lately  with  an  account  of  a  nation  with  whom  he 
told  me  he  had  passed  a  considerable  part  of  his  life, 
and  whom  he  found,  in  the  main,  a  people  extremely 
civilized  and  intelligent. 

"  ^  There  is  a  country,'  said  he,  'in  the  world  called 
Fourli,  no  matter  for  its  longitude  and  latitude, 
whose  inhabitants  have  ways  of  thinking  in  many 
things,  particularly  in  morals,  diametrically  opposite 
to  ours.  .  .  . 

"  '  As  it  was  my  fortune  to  come  among  this  peo- 

ii8 


DAVID    HUME 

pie  on  a  very  advantageous  footing,  I  was  immedi- 
ately introduced  to  the  best  company  3  and  being 
desired  by  Alcheic  to  live  with  him,  I  readily  accepted 
his  invitation,  as  I  found  him  universally  esteemed 
for  his  personal  merit,  and  indeed  regarded  by  every 
one  in  Fourli  as  a  perfect  character.' " 

And  we  are  thereupon  regaled  with  a  display  of 
Alcheic's  virtues.  We  accompany  him  first  in  a  ser- 
enade that  he  offers,  not  indeed  to  his  lady-love, 
but  to  a  certain  youth,  and  we  learn  in  this  connection, 
that  Alcheic,  himself,  who  had  been  very  handsome 
in  his  youth,  had  been  courted  by  many  lovers, 
but  had  bestowed  his  favors  chiefly  on  the  sage 
Elcouf,  to  whom  he  was  supposed  to  owe,  in  great 
measure,  the  astonishing  progress  he  had  made  in 
philosophy  and  wisdom.  "  It  gave  me  great  sur- 
prise," the  traveller  adds,  "  that  Alcheic's  wife  (who 
by-the-by,  happened  also  to  be  his  sister)  was  no  wise 
scandalized  at  this  species  of  infidelity." 

Later  it  appears  that  Alcheic  was  a  murderer  and 
a  parricide  j  and  when  asked  what  was  his  motive  for 
this  action,  he  replies  coolly  that  he  "  was  not  then  so 
much  at  ease  in  his  circumstances  as  he  is  at  present, 
and  that  he  had  acted  in  that  particular  at  the  advice 
of  all  his  friends." 

But  that,  of  all  his  actions,  which  was  most  highly 
applauded  by  the  Fourlians,  was  the  assassination  of 

119 


DAVID    HUME 

Usbek.  "  This  Usbek  had  been  to  the  last  moment 
Alcheic's  intimate  friend,  had  laid  many  high  obli- 
gations upon  him,  had  even  saved  his  life  on  a  cer- 
tain occasion,  and  had,  by  his  will,  which  was  found 
after  the  murder,  made  him  heir  to  a  considerable 
part  of  his  fortune.  Alcheic,  it  seems,  conspired  with 
about  twenty  or  thirty  more,  most  of  them  also 
Usbek's  friends  j  and  falling  all  together  on  that 
unhappy  man  when  he  was  not  aware,  they  had  torn 
him  with  a  hundred  wounds,  and  given  him  that  re- 
ward for  all  his  past  favors  and  obligations."  Usbek 
"  had  many  great  and  good  qualities  j  .  .  .  but  this 
action  of  Alcheic's  sets  him  far  above  Usbek  in  the 
eyes  of  all  judges  of  merit 5  and  is  one  of  the  noblest 
that  ever  perhaps  the  sun  shone  upon." 

Other  splendid  achievements  of  this  gentleman 
are  recounted,  and  the  list  might  have  been  longer 
had  not  the  narrator  interrupted  his  friend. 
"  Pray,"  said  he,  "  Palamedes,  when  you  were  at 
Fourli,  did  you  also  learn  the  art  of  turning  your 
friends  into  ridicule  by  telling  them  strange  stories, 
and  then  laughing  at  them  if  they  believed  you?" 
"  I  assure  you,"  replied  the  traveller,  "  had  I  been 
disposed  to  learn  such  a  lesson  there  was  no  place  in 
the  world  more  proper.  My  friend  did  nothing 
from  morning  to  night  but  sneer  and  banter  and 
rally  5    and    you    could    scarcely    ever    distinguish 

120 


DAVID    HUME 

whether  he  were  in  jest  or  earnest.  But  you  think, 
then,  that  my  story  is  improbable,  and  that  I  have 
used,  or  rather  abused,  the  privilege  of  a  traveller?  " 

"  To  be  sure,"  said  I,  "  you  were  but  in  jest.  Such 
barbarous  and  savage  manners  are  not  only  incom- 
patible with  a  civilized  intelligent  people,  such  as 
you  said  those  were  5  but  are  scarcely  compatible  with 
human  nature.  They  exceed  all  we  ever  read 
among  the  Mingrelians  and  Topinamboues." 

"  Have  a  care,"  cried  Palamedes,  "  have  a  care ! 
You  are  not  aware  that  you  are  speaking  blasphemy, 
and  are  abusing  your  favorites,  the  Greeks,  espe- 
cially the  Athenians,  whom  I  have  couched  all  along 
under  these  bizarre  names  I  employed.  If  you  con- 
sider aright,  there  is  not  one  stroke  of  the  foregoing 
character  which  might  not  be  found  in  the  man  of 
highest  merit  at  Athens.  .  .  .  The  amours  of  the 
Greeks,  their  marriages  (the  laws  of  Athens  allowed 
an  to  marry  his  sister  by  the  father),  and  the  ex- 
posing of  their  children  cannot  but  strike  you  im- 
mediately. The  death  of  Usbek  is  an  exact  counter- 
part to  that  of  Cassar,"  —  and  so  the  parallel  runs 
on  until  Palamedes  concludes  triumphantly,  "  I 
think  I  have  fairly  made  it  appear  that  an  Athenian 
man  of  merit  might  be  .  .  .  incestuous,  a  parricide, 
an  assassin,  an  ungrateful  perjured  traitor,  and  some- 
thing else  too  abominable  to  be  named  and  having 

121 


DAVID    HUME 

lived  in  this  manner,  his  death  might  be  entirely 
suitable  5  he  might  conclude  the  scene  by  a  desparate 
act  of  self-murder,  and  die  with  the  most  absurd 
blasphemies  in  his  mouth.  And  notwithstanding  this 
he  shall  have  statues,  if  not  altars,  erected  to  his 
memory." 

I  need  hardly  say  that  Hume  has  in  the  "  Dia- 
logue "  from  which  I  quote  made  use  of  a  pleasant 
artifice  to  force  on  the  reader's  attention  the  nature 
and  difficulty  of  his  problem:  to  find,  namely,  a  com- 
mon meaning  for  the  words  "  virtue  "  and  "  vice,"  by 
whomsoever  used  5  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  nearly 
kindred  civilizations  will  be  the  one  confident  it  has 
found  virtue,  where  the  other  is  certain  it  has  found 
vice.  "  How  shall  we  pretend  to  fix  a  standard  for 
judgments  of  this  nature?  "  he  finally  puts  the  ques- 
tion. "  By  tracing  matters,"  he  answers  himself,  "  a 
little  higher.  .  .  .  The  Rhine  flows  north,  the  Rhone 
south  J  yet  both  spring  from  the  same  mountain,  and 
are  also  actuated  in  their  opposite  directions  by  the 
same  principle  of  gravity.  The  diflferent  inclina- 
tions of  the  ground  on  which  they  run  cause  all  the 
differences  of  their  courses."  And  one  by  one  with 
admirable  skill,  he  takes  up  the  virtues  of  our  friend 
Alcheic,  which  to  us  are  such  conspicuous  vices,  to 
show  that  under  the  conditions  of  Greek  life  most 
had  a  quality  in  common  with  those  perhaps  directly 

122 


DAVID    HUME 

opposite  acts,  which,  under  the  conditions  of  our  life 
we  should  commend,  and  that  quality,  which  is  the 
keynote  of  all  Hume^s  ethics,  is  ^^  utility.'^ 
ij^  It  appears,"  he  puts  it,  "  that  there  never  was 
any  quality  recommended  by  anyone  as  a  virtue  or 
moral  excellence,  but  on  account  of  its  being  useful 
or  agreeable^  to  a  man  himself  or  to  others.  For 
what  other  reason  can  ever  be  assigned  for  praise  or 
approbation?  Or  where  would  be  the  sense  of  ex- 
tolling a  good  character  or  action,  which  at  the  same 
time  is  allowed  to  be  good  for  nothing^  All  the 
differences,  therefore,  in  morals  may  be  reduced  to 
this  one  general  foundation,  and  may  be  accounted 
for  by  the  different  views  which  people  take  of  these 
circumstances." 


I-  Given  Hume^s  world-view,  it  is  evident  that  the 
only  ones  whom  we  have  a  right  to  count  in  estimat- 
ing the  agreeable  or  disagreeable  effects  of  our  ac- 
tions are  such  other  sentient  beings  as  experience  re- 
veals to  us:  to  wit,  our  fellow  humans  and  perhaps 
the  higher  animals.  Moreover,  the  only  period 
which  we  have  a  right  to  consider  as  containing  a 
life's  measure  of  happiness  and  unhappiness  is  that 
which  experience  confirms  to  us:  to  wit,  that  bounded 
by  birth  and  deatL^ 

Thus  defined,  the  calculus  of  utility  involved  in 

123 


DAVID    HUME 

judging  the  merit  of  an  act  may  be  difficult,  but  is 
possible  of  an  empirical  solution.  There  remains 
only  one  question  of  human  destiny  to  be  settled, 
but  it  is  an  important  one.  What,  namely,  is  the  re- 
lation between  the  happiness  experience  gives  me  a 
right  to  expect,  and  the  virtue  of  my  conduct?  For 
/Hume's  ethics  are  not  egoistic.  The  utility  that 
measures  the  excellence  of  my  act  is  not  merely,  nor 
even  primarily,  its  agreeableness  to  me  3  but  also,  and 
perhaps  in  larger  measure,  its  agreeableness  to  others^ 
How  for  this  large  element  of  altruism  in  all  good 
actions  am  I,  the  actor,  to  be  paid,  if  paid  I  am  to  be? 
To  this  question  Hume  gives  an  elaborate  reply  in 
a  section  of  his  "  Enquiry  Concerning  the  Principles 
of  Morals  "  entitled  "  Why  Utility  Pleases."  The 
answer  is  simple  enough.  /There  is  in  the  human 
heart  a  sentiment  we  call  sympathy,  or,  to  use 
Hume's  favorite  word,  "  humanity."  To  possess  this 
sentiment  is  to  rejoice  in  another's  joy,  grieve  with 
another's  grief.  To  possess  such  a  sentiment  is  to 
possess  the  reward  of  all  altruism  3  for  happiness  be- 
stowed upon  another  is  bread  cast  upon  the  waters 
that  returns  to  us  after  days  as  few  or  as  many  as 
may  be  required  to  produce  in  our  own  soul  the 
sympathetic  image  of  the  happiness  we  have  wrought 
in  another's.  / 

124 


DAVID    HUME 

Such  is  the  theory  of  human  duty  and  of  human 
destiny  which  Hume  has  worked  out  by  the  method 
of  Empiricism,  which  pretends  not  to  a  knowledge 
of  God,  nor  of  a  system  of  things  broader  than  the 
world  of  our  experience.  We  may  allow  his  own 
words  to  contrast  the  resulting  attitude  toward  life 
and  duty  with  the  theological:  "I  deny  a  provi- 
dence, you  say,  and  supreme  governor  of  the 
world,  who  guides  the  course  of  events  and  punishes 
the  vicious  with  infamy  and  disappointment,  and  re- 
wards the  virtuous  with  honor  and  success  in  all  their 
undertakings.  But  surely  I  deny  not  the  course  it- 
self of  events,  which  lies  open  to  every  one's  enquiry 
and  examination.  I  acknowledge  that  in  the  present 
order  of  things  virtue  is  attended  with  more  peace 
of  mind  than  vice  and  meets  with  a  more  favorable 
reception  from  the  world.  I  am  sensible  that  accord- 
ing to  the  past  experience  of  mankind,  friendship  is 
the  chief  joy  of  human  life,  and  moderation  the  only 
source  of  tranquillity  and  happiness.  I  never  balance 
between  the  virtuous  and  the  vicious  course  of  life 
but  am  sensible  that  to  a  well-disposed  mind  every 
advantage  is  on  the  side  of  the  former.  And  what 
can  you  say  more,  allowing  all  your  suppositions  and 
reasonings?  " 


125 


IMMANUEL   KANT 

I 724-1 804 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

The  religion  of  Immanuel  Kant  can  be  put  in  one 
phrase,  "  We  cannot  know  that  there  is  a  Godj  but 
we  ought  to  live  as  though  there  were  one  "  —  the 
diiEculty  lies  in  interpreting  the  phrase. 

That  we  cannot  know  there  is  a  God  is  a  conclu- 
sion to  which  we  have  seen  the  decline  of  rationalism 
and  the  growth  of  empiricism  slowly  tending.  But 
that  we  ought  to  live  as  though  there  were  a  God  — 
what  can  such  a  phrase  mean?  What  manner  of 
life  does  it  prescribe?  Above  all,  what  sort  of  an 
ought  is  this  and  how  does  it  bind  us? 

There  is  no  deeper  interest  for  Kant  than  that 
which  invites  one  to  consider  the  meaning  of  the 
word  "  ought."  I  say,  the  meaning  of  "  ought," 
yet  it  may  be  that  the  word  has  more  than  one  mean- 
ing. For  compare  these  two  examples  of  its  use,  — 
first  this:  If  you  want  to  bisect  a  line  you  ought  to 
describe  certain  arcs  and  draw  a  certain  straight  line. 
And  then  this:  "You  ought  to  speak  the  truth." 

We  notice  at  once  a  rhetorical  difference  in  these 
two  uses  of  the  ought.  In  the  first,  a  certain  pro- 
cedure is  commanded  if  and  only  if  we  want  to  bisect 

129 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

a  line.  Leave  out  the  condition  this  if  introduces, 
and  the  ought  with  all  that  follows  on  it  loses  its 
meaning.  No  decalogue  could  be  imagined  to  con- 
tain among  its  commands  an  injunction  to  describe 
arcs  and  draw  lines.  Let  us  call  this  use  of  the 
ought  the  hypothetical  use,  let  us  call  the  command 
such  an  ought  introduces  a  hypothetical  command  or 
in  Kant's  own  phrase  a  "  hypothetical  imperative?^ 
An  ought  that  is  inseparable  from  an  if  is  a  hypo- 
thetical imperative. 

On  the  other  hand  when  I  say,  "  You  ought  to 
speak  the  truth,"  "  You  ought  not  to  steal,"  I  seem 
to  be  using  the  ought  in  a  sense  that  needs  no  if  to 
make  its  meaning  clear.  More  than  that,  attempts 
to  supply  an  i/,  so  far  from  making  the  meaning  of 
the  ought  clearer,  have  more  often  than  not  the 
effect  of  changing,  of  travestying  the  meaning  we 
instinctively  see  in  it.  Truthful  speaking  and  honest 
dealing  be  indeed  useful  devices  for  getting  along  in 
the  world,  but  one  who  is  honest  because  honesty  is 
the  best  policy  seems  to  us  hardly  honest  —  at  all 
events  he  seems  to  have  missed  the  point  that  honesty 
is  enjoined  on  us  without  ifs  or  huts.  The  obliga- 
tion to  be  honest  is  an  unconditional  command,  a 
"  categorical  imperative?^  It  is  of  such  stuff  as  dec- 
alogues are  made  on  —  it  is  so  the  voice  of  duty 
speaks  in  us. 

130 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

It  needs  no  pointing  out  that  so  far  as  our  examples 
go,  the  hypothetical  ought  has  no  moral  flavor.  No 
sin  attaches  to  one  who  has  left  undone  the  things 
he  ought  to  have  done  tj  he  aimed  at  bisecting  a  line. 
Sin  does  attach  to  one  who  has  done  what  he 
ought  not  to  have  done  in  the  way  of  lying,  no 
matter  what  end  seemed  to  justify  the  means.  This 
hypothetical  ought  finds  its  reason  in  pure  science, 
this  categorical  in  pure  morality. 

All  this  is  true,  and  yet  one  would  form  a  poor 
opinion  of  Kant's  thoroughness  if  one  represented 
him  as  having  rushed  from  one  or  two  examples  to 
the  generalization:  All  hypothetical  uses  of  the 
ought  are  scientific  and  non-moral;  all  categorical 
uses  are  moral  and  non-scientific.  To  such  a  gen- 
eralization Kant  does  indeed  come,  and  to  it  he  clings 
through  difficulties  more  than  enough  to  discourage 
one  in  whom  the  conviction  of  its  truth  were  less  a 
matter  of  heart  than  it  was  to  Kant.  But  however  it 
fitted  in  with  Kant's  character  to  view  the  command 
of  duty  as  sternly  categorical,  it  was  equally  part  of 
his  character  patiently  to  seek  a  reason  for  the  faith 
that  was  in  him. 

If  Kant  had  wished  to  establish  no  more  than  that 
there  must  be  something  categorical  about  the  moral 
ought  distinguishing  it  from  the  many  oughts  that 
suggest  nothing  of  morality,  his  task  would  not 

131 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

have  been  hard.  For  suppose  that  to  every  com- 
mand there  was  really  a  hidden  condition  attached  j 
suppose  that  the  categorical  was  really  a  hypothet- 
ical imperative  in  disguise.  Then  the  goodness  of 
the  act  commanded  could  mean  no  more  than  its  fit- 
ness to  bring  about  a  certain  result.  But  what  of  the 
result?  Is  it  J  too,  good?  The  question  can  obvi- 
ously have  no  meaning,  for  only  the  way  can  be 
good  5  the  goal  cannot.  And  yet  we  seem  to  revolt 
against  such  meaning  of  goodness:  there  is  a  diflfer- 
ence  to  us  between  a  good  way  of  cheating  one's 
neighbor  and  a  way  of  being  good.  Either  then 
there  is  some  way  of  defining  a  good  end  —  an 
end  which  justifies  the  means  —  or  else  there  must 
be  a  moral  excellence  that  belongs  to  certain  types 
of  act  irrespective  of  what  they  may  lead  to,  if  in- 
deed they  lead  to  aught  in  common.  In  either 
case  we  come  upon  the  categorical  ought  —  the  end 
that  ought  to  be  pursued  for  its  own  sake,  or  else 
the  type  of  act  that  ought  to  be  followed  for  its 
own  sake  with  no  view  to  consequences.  The  first 
interpretation  of  the  moral  ought  would  be  illus- 
trated in  a  theory  that  pointed,  as  did  Hume's,  to  the 
happiness  of  the  community  as  an  end  imposed  with- 
out condition,  while  it  defined  good  actions  to  be 
such  as  were  well  calculated  to  bring  about  this  end. 
The  second  interpretation  is  in  the  spirit  of  the  Dec- 

132 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

alogue,  or  of  the  classic  saying,  Let  justice  be  done 
though  the  heavens  fall.  It  is  not  the  business  of 
the  actor  to  consider  the  consequences  of  his  just 
dealings  if  the  world  is  so  divinely  ordered  that  not 
the  heavens  but  heaven's  blessing  fall  on  the  just 
man,  this  is  a  truth  to  be  independently  established. 
Duty  first,  consequences  after! 

No  theory  of  the  moral  ought  can  escape  a 
recognition  of  a  categorical  command  j  but  we  must 
choose  between  the  end  and  the  act  as  that  to  which 
the  ought  applies.  If  we  are  sometimes  doubtful 
whether  Kant  abides  at  all  points  by  the  decision  he 
first'  makes  in  this  matter,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
he  comes  to  a  decision  at  once  in  favor  of  the  view 
that  the  moral  ought  applies  to  a  type  of  act,  not  to 
an  end  this  type  of  act  might  be  calculated  to  bring 
about.  We  should  still  know  our  duty  if  we  knew 
of  no  such  end,  we  ought  still  to  follow  duty  if  there 
were  no  such  end.  It  is  in  trying  to  carry  through 
this  idea,  which  we  may  call  the  Decalogue  idea,  of 
the  categorical  oughty  that  Kant  meets  his  most  se- 
rious difiiculties.  Yet  the  motives  which  made  him 
accept  and  cling  to  such  an  interpretation  are  such 
as  the  simplest  may  grasp  —  yes,  the  simpler  one  is 
of  heart,  the  more  easily  may  one  sympathize  with 
them. 

In  the  first  place  a  scientific  insight  into  the  means 

133 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

best  calculated  to  bring  about  an  end  is  obtainable 
only  by  study  and  thought.  Even  the  simple  device 
by  which  a  line  may  be  bisected  is  not  at  every  one's 
disposal,  while  the  highest  science  has  but  imperfect 
means  to  suggest  for  accomplishing  the  ends  we  most 
crave.  But  it  seemed  to  Kant  that  duty  must  make 
a  universal  appeal,  to  the  poor  understanding  as 
clearly  as  to  the  richly  endowed  5  morality  must  be 
no  privilege  of  the  high,  but  a  treasure  of  the 
humble.  "  Be  good,  sweet  maid,  and  let  who  will  be 
clever,"  is  a  word  of  homely  counsel  that  has  crept 
into  our  language  to  show  how  good  a  Kantian  the 
plain  man  may  be. 

Or  again —  but  really  it  is  the  same  thought  dif- 
ferently expressed  —  duty  ought  to  make  no  hesi- 
tating uncertain  appeal.  No  one  should  have  a 
chance  to  excuse  himself  on  the  ground  that  he  was 
ignorant  of  the  law.  But  ignorance  of  scientific  law 
is  the  portion  of  all  of  us.  Alas,  if  we  should  have 
to  grope  after  goodness  as  we  do  after  wisdom !  The 
intellectuality  of  pagan  Greece  might  and  did  con- 
template such  a  state  of  affairs  with  equanimity 
or  even  with  favor.  The  spirit  of  Christianity  ex- 
pressed the  deep  desire  of  the  unintellectual  that  at 
least  virtue  might  be  theirs  for  the  willing. 

Kant  had  a  name  for  any  law  that  was  thus  uni- 
versal (that  is,  applying  to  everybody)  and  neces- 

134 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

sary  (that  is,  free  from  uncertainty).  He  called 
such  laws  a  priori;  that  is,  not  dependent  for  their 
authority  upon  the  slow  uncertain  gathering  of  ex- 
perimental evidence.  To  him  then,  the  one  chance 
of  possessing  a  moral  law  a  p-iori  lay  in  the  recogni- 
tion that  such  a  law  must  in  decalogue  fashion  pre- 
scribe a  type  of  act,  not  an  end  which  might  be  un- 
certainly tried  for  now  by  truth-telling,  now  by 
lying  —  not  an  end  in  short  which  justified  the 
means  so  dubiously  that  it  might  be  taken  to  justify 
any  means. 

To  us  mortals  wandering  in  the  mazes  of  life  and 
perplexed  —  we  think  honestly  perplexed  —  by  the 
way  issues  of  right  and  wrong  present  themselves, 
the  possession  of  an  indubitable  law  of  duty  whose 
authority  was  higher  than  any  consideration  of  con- 
sequences would  be  a  godsend.  Tet  because  such  a 
thing  is  desirable,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  pos- 
sible, and  we  are  quite  prepared  to  find  Kant  at  this 
point  setting  up  as  the  deepest  problem  of  ethics  the 
question,  "  How  is  a  categorical  imperative  pos- 
sible? "  That  is,  what  sort  of  a  world  would  it  be 
in  which  men  recognized  the  authority  of  such  an 
ought  and  were  free  and  willing  to  obey  it? 

An  image  of  one  such  world  is  the  common  pos- 
session of  our  race.    God  created  this  world,  and  the 

135 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

beings  that  dwell  in  it.  On  these  beings  he  lays  cer- 
tain commands  in  the  form  of  a  decalogue,  and  their 
authority  rests  on  the  will  of  God  regarded  now  as 
King.  If  God  had  purpose  in  laying  these  com- 
mands on  his  subjects,  their  duty  to  God's  will  must 
not  wait  on  their  insight  into  his  purpose  and  their 
acceptance  of  it  as  theirs.  Man  has  been  created  free 
to  obey  or  not  to  obey  God's  commands,  and  is  told 
that  happiness  will  be  meted  out  to  him  in  the  meas- 
ure of  his  obedience,  unhappiness  in  the  measure  of 
his  disobedience.  But  to  deserve  reward,  he  must 
not  only  obey  God's  law,  but  do  it  uniquely  because 
it  is  God's  will.  He  must  conceive  himself  as  pre- 
pared to  obey  without  promise  of  reward  or  threat  of 
punishment.  Moreover,  it  is  not  pretended  that  this 
justice  will  accomplish  itself  within  the  limits  of  hu- 
man life  on  this  earth,  but  in  a  future  life  and  in 
another  world  whose  existence  must  be  taken  on 
faith.  Here  then  we  have  an  image  of  a  world  in 
which  a  categorical  imperative  in  the  form  of  a  dec- 
alogue is  possible,  and  not  only  is  possible,  but  has 
exactly  the  relations  to  purpose  and  to  happiness  that 
Kant  required  of  such  an  imperative.  Duty  may 
serve  a  purpose  j  but  the  assurance  we  have  of  this 
is  no  part  of  the  authority  duty  has  for  us.  The  per- 
formance of  duty  may  bring  happiness  j  but  duty 


136 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

would  remain  authoritative  if  we  knew  nothing  of 
any  happiness  it  would  bring.^ 

This  world,  we  might  call  it  the  Old  Testament 
World,  is  then  exactly  the  kind  of  a  world  in  which 
morality  as  Kant  defines  morality  could  and  would 
exist.  Moreover  Kant  is  prepared  to  show  that  it  is 
the  only  kind  of  a  world  in  which  true  morality  could 
exist.  If  we  are  to  have  such  a  thing  as  a  command 
of  duty,  we  must  have  the  three  things  characteristic 
of  our  Old  Testament  world-image:  the  freedom 
of  man,  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  the  ruling 
power  of  God.  If  we  take  these,  as  well  we  may, 
to  be  the  essential  beliefs  of  religion,  then  it  ap- 
pears that  for  Kant  morality  is  inseparable  from 
religion. 

I  say  that  Kant  is  prepared  to  prove  that  with- 
out these  three  assumptions,  God,  freedom  and  im- 
mortality, no  categorical  imperative  is  possible  5  but 
I  am  far  from  asserting  that  a  conscientious  thinker 
will  be  prepared  to  follow  Kant  in  every  step  of  this 
proof.  It  is  in  most  parts  a  tortured  process  of 
reasoning  at  once  over  subtle  and  over  simple,  and 
back  of  it  all,  one  feels  that  Kant's  deepest  motives 

^  This  image  of  the  Old  Testament  World  is  not  of  course 
supposed  to  be  that  of  the  ancient  Hebrews.  Rather  does  it 
represent  this  world  as  reflected  in  the  thought  of  a  modern 
Christian  community. 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

for  arriving  at  his  conclusions  are  the  instinctive  de- 
mands of  his  heart,  which  demands  a  marvelous  in- 
tellect is  made  to  serve  as  best  it  may. 

However,  the  first  step  is  obvious  enough:  un- 
less there  is  a  sense  in  which  the  being  on  whom  a 
duty  is  laid  is  free  to  follow  or  not  to  follow  its 
command,  there  is  no  sense  in  which  duty  is  possible. 
This  ought  ye  to  doj  but  alas  you  cannot!  This 
ought  ye  to  do,  and  besides  you  can't  help  doing  it! 
These  expressions  equally  rob  the  ought  of  meaning. 
We  can  quite  see  that  without  freedom,  duty  is 
meaningless.  Yet  the  beings  on  whom  the  commands 
of  duty  are  laid  are  men  like  you  and  me,  and  in 
such  beings  we  notice  that  what  freedom  they  have 
is  limited  in  a  peculiar  way.  We  are  in  the  habit  of 
attributing  to  each  a  certain  nature  or  character  that 
we  try  to  regard  as  working  itself  out  —  if  not  in 
all  —  yet  in  many  and  various  situations.  But  in 
this  attempt  to  explain  conduct  in  terms  of  character 
and  its  expression,  we  are  constantly  baffled  by  what 
seems  to  us  a  duality  or  even  multiplicity  of  char- 
acters in  the  same  individual.  In  this  man  we  explain 
a  certain  part  of  his  conduct  as  the  outcome  of  a 
strong  imperious  animalityj  but  another  part  shows 
his  passion  restrained  by  motives  of  honor,  kindness, 
sympathy.  Two  natures  are  at  war  in  him,  and  as 
we  are  likely  to  think  of  one  of  these  as  more  really 

138 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

his  than  the  other,  we  represent  him  as  struggling 
to  conquer  himself. 

Well,  this  warfare  of  a  man  with  himself  is  one 
of  the  commonest  things  in  life,  and  life  itself 
shows  that  a  higher  or  better  self  may  often  enough 
win  the  victory  over  and  free  itself  from  a  baser 
and  lower  disposition.  But  life  shows  too  that  the 
struggle  is  long  and  bitter,  so  long  that  a  lifetime 
is  too  short  a  span  in  which  to  secure  a  complete 
victory.  Just  in  proportion  as  the  higher  self  is 
high,  does  the  struggle  grow  hard  and  lengthen 
itself  out.  If  we  conceive  the  self  whose  struggles 
we  are  watching  to  be  the  moral  self  as  Kant  de- 
scribes it,  all  the  love  and  lust  of  life  seem  to  be 
arrayed  against  it.  If  it  is  to  free  itself,  that  is  if 
we  are  to  become  completely  moral  agents,  not  a 
lifetime,  nor  a  century,  nor  a  million  years,  but  the 
whole  of  eternity  must  be  allowed  us  for  our  bat- 
tling. But  this  means  that  the  actor  must  be  im- 
mortal, and  so  it  is  that  for  Kant  the  possibility  of 
a  completely  moral  being,  free  to  act  out  his  moral 
nature,  presupposes  immortality. 

The  existence  of  a  moral  being  then  involves  the 
acceptance  of  him  as  a  free  immortal  being.  But 
though  these  are  important  traits  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment world  image  which  Kant  is  trying  to  show  to 
be  the  only  image  that  makes  morality  possible,  yet 

139 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

the  recognition  of  a  man's  freedom  and  immortality 
is  not  peculiar  to  it,  but  may  be  found  in  many  phi- 
losophies. Bothj  for  example,  have  a  place  in  Spi- 
noza's system  which  is  as  far  as  possible  from  giv- 
ing us  an  Old  Testament  account  of  reality. 

When  we  add  a  third  condition,  the  ruling  power 
of  God,  we  have  a  difference  indeed,  but  also  a  dif- 
ficulty in  understanding  the  necessity  of  the  assump- 
tion. To  be  sure,  if  we  add  the  idea  of  justice  to  that 
of  moral  worth,  if  we  require  that  worth  s-hould  be 
rewarded  with  proportional  happiness,  then  indeed 
we  should  have  to  go  beyond  experience  to  convince 
ourselves  that  such  justice  obtains, and  we  might  very 
well  identify  the  ideal  of  justice  with  the  idea  of  a 
God-governed  world.  But  Kant  has  insisted 
throughout  that  the  idea  of  right  and  the  idea  of  re- 
ward are  independent,  why  then  are  they  not  sep- 
arable? Why  in  order  that  there  may  be  a  thing 
that  we  ought  to  do,  must  there  be  an  assurance  that 
we  shall  be  happy  in  the  doing  or  because  of  the 
doing  of  it? 

It  is  easy  to  give  Kant's  answer  to  this  question  — 
it  is  difficult  to  make  sure  that  one  has  understood  it. 
His  answer  is  simply  that  while  morality  may  be  the 
highest  desire  of  the  human  heart,  it  cannot  be  its 
whole  desire.  It  must  desire  happiness  as  well  as 
virtue. 

140 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

Kant  defines  the  happy  man  as  one  whose  desires 
are  satisfied.  But  if  we  think  of  this  desire  as  being 
directed  toward  a  tyfe  of  object,  any  atempt  to  in- 
terpret Kant's  motives  for  introducing  a  God  into  his 
system  must  meet  the  obvious  difficulty  that  since 
morality  is  the  highest  type  of  desire  and  since  it 
is  admitted  that  all  are  free  to  be  moral,  then  the 
Stoic  happiness  in  virtue  is  assured  quite  without 
reference  to  a  divine  government  of  the  world. 

The  only  way  we  can  hope  to  explain  in  what 
sense  the  will  to  do  one's  duty  cannot  be  a  complete 
definition  of  the  object  of  human  desire  is  to  under- 
stand that  happiness  depends  upon  our  obtaining,  not 
a  type  of  thing,  —  morality  or  wealth  or  power  or 
science  —  but  an  individual  thing.  Our  demand  for 
moral  satisfaction  may  be  realized  in  one  situation  as 
well  as  another.  "  To  tell  the  truth,"  if  that  be  all 
we  want,  lays  no  conditions  on  the  particular  cir- 
cumstances under  which  we  tell  the  truth.  We  want 
to  follow  a  principle,  and  principles  are  abstract 
enough.  But  is  it  not  true  that  the  kind  of  desire 
of  which  finite  beings  have  the  deepest  experience 
is  bent  on  just  those  things  that  cannot  be  generalized 
nor  made  abstract?  What  we  want  in  them,  and  that 
on  which  our  happiness  depends,  seems  to  be  offered 
but  this  once  in  all  possible  life,  and  nothing  like  it 


141 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

could  be  imagined  that  would  meet  our  desires  just 
as  well. 

For  example,  when  desire  is  for  the  love  of  a 
woman,  it  is  for  the  love  of  this  woman,  not  of  some 
woman.  Ask  such  love  what  it  sees  to  love  in  this 
individual  that  could  not  just  as  well  be  found  in 
another,  and  the  lover  will  laugh  you  out.  You 
are  not  speaking  his  language.  You  are  looking  for 
qualities,  types,  principles  —  what  he  wants  with  all 
his  soul  is  not  a  kind  of  a  woman  but  just  his  woman. 
And  to  her  he  sings. 

Who  is  it  says  the  most?    which  can  say  more 
Than  this  rich  praise,  —  that  you  alone  are  you? 

Or  do  you  ask  as  the  thing  on  which  all  your 
happiness  hangs  that  death  keep  his  hands  off  just 
this  child?  Then  what  meaning  would  it  have 
for  you  if  a  condoling  friend  were  to  point  out  that 
you  had  other  children  far  more  remarkable?  It 
was  not  for  his  qualities  you  cared  when  you  cared 
for  him,  nor  yet  for  his  value  as  a  unit  in  counting 
your  offspring. 

I  don't  pretend  to  explain  why  this  is,  or  what 
it  all  means  5^  but  when  Kant  maintains  that  to  will 
a  principle  and  nothing  but  a  principle  is  not  what 

■•■  The   individuating   quality   of  love   is  again   discussed  in 
Chap.  X,  on  "  Love  and  Loyalty." 

142 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

we  mean  by  willing,  these  instances  of  objects  of 
desire  that  are  purely  individual  and  can  not  be 
reduced  to  principle  naturally  present  themselves 
as  facts  of  experience  that  may  help  us  to  catch 
Kant's  meaning. 

Of  all  principles  of  willing,  the  moral  principle 
is  the  highest  j  but  the  willing  of  individual  human 
beings  cannot  from  its  very  nature  be  completely 
defined  by  principle.  The  only  world  in  which 
will  can  have  an  object^  i,e,y  the  only  world  in 
which  there  can  be  such  a  thing  as  will,  must  be 
a  world  of  individual  things.  If  it  is  to  be  a  moral 
world,  it  must  be  possible  to  struggle  for  these  in- 
dividual things  without  disobeying  the  law  of  duty. 

Happiness,  defined  as  getting  the  individual 
thing  you  want,  must  be  guaranteed,  or  else,  since 
you  can  only  want  something  that  is  individual, 
willing  is  objectless.  Who  or  what  is  to  guarantee 
that  the  world  in  which  we  willers  of  concrete 
things  may  will  consistently  with  moral  principle 
exists?  Not  experience,  surely j  that  has  a  way  of 
arranging  things  so  that  the  woman  one  wants  is 
just  the  one  principle  denies  one 3  the  child  one  has 
set  one's  heart  on  is  just  the  one  death  has  set  his 
seal  on.  The  chapter  of  "  life's  little  ironies  "  is 
a  full  one.  Then  does  it  not  require  the  guaran- 
tee of  a  world  maker  or  a  world  ruler  that  life's 

143 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

indifference  or  irony  have  not  the  last  word? 
Does  not  the  possibility  of  a  moral  will  hang  upon 
the  assurance  of  God?  So  at  least  for  Kant,  God 
makes  goodness  possible. 

"God,  freedom  and  immortality,"  these  three 
are  traits  inseparable  from  a  world  in  which  duty 
can  speak  and  be  obeyed  3  the  Old  Testament  world 
is  not  only  a  moral  world,  it  is  the  only  moral  world. 
And  if,  so  far,  Kant  has  clung  very  closely  to  the 
Old  Testament,  we  should  find  him  in  his  later 
writing  —  his  "  Religion  within  the  Domain  of  Pure 
Reason"  —  clinging  just  as  closely  to  the  spirit  of 
the  New  Testament.  Those  who  find  his  reason- 
ing obscure  and  faulty,  would  explain  all  this  in 
terms  of  his  personal  psychology  and  his  early 
environment,  for  Kant  was  a  child  of  that  deep 
Pietism,  one  might  say  Quakerism,  that  character- 
izes the  Germany  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

But  if  we  look  upon  him  as  the  child  of  his  age 
in  his  devotion  to  Christianity,  he  was  no  less  pro- 
foundly influenced  by  that  other  and  equally  charac- 
teristic movement  of  his  day  and  generation  —  the 
inheritance  of  Rationalism.  The  Old  Testament 
and  even  the  New  Testament  world  images  may 
have  deep  truth  hidden  in  their  symbolism  —  so 
the  child  of  pietism  would  be  likely  to  think  —  but 

144 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

the  authority  of  this  truth  was  not  to  be  sought 
in  revelation.  It  must  be  established,  if  at  all,  by 
one's  reason  —  so  the  disciple  of  rationalism  was 
bound  to  maintain.  Now  Kant  is  not  only  a  ration- 
alist, rejecting  revelation  as  a  source  of  authority. 
He  is  also  a  critic,  to  whom  the  arguments  of  ration- 
alism for  the  existence  of  God  appear  flimsy  and 
irrational.  Neither  in  reason  nor  in  experience  can 
we  find  grounds  for  accepting  the  existence  of  God 
as  a  scientific  facf.  Hume  could  be  no  more  con- 
vinced than  Kant  that  no  aspect  of  the  world  with 
which  our  experience  acquaints  us  justifies  a  belief 
in  divine  purpose.  Kant  went  further  —  no  exten- 
sion of  experience  in  future  ages  could  give  us  the 
assurance  we  now  lack.  God  is  unknown  to  our 
science  and  unknowable. 

Well  then,  if  neither  the  necessities  of  thought 
nor  the  facts  of  experience,  however  we  conceive 
our  knowledge  of  them  extended,  can  force  upon 
us  a  belief  in  God  and  all  that  hangs  on  him,  what 
is  left  of  religion  and  of  morality  that  cannot  be 
separated  from  religion?  Kant's  answer  to  this 
question  is  so  confusing  that  it  is  little  wonder  the 
interpreters  of  Kant  are  confused,  in  disagreement 
with  each  other  and  each  doubtful  of  himself.  I 
am  obliged  then,  since  we  have  not  the  time  to  try 
out  all  the  ifs  and  huts  of  the  case,  to  present  dog- 

145 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

matically  one  line  of  thought  that  is  to  be  found  in 
Kant,  the  one  along  which  post-Kantian  thought 
developed.  If  anyone  tell  me  that  he  fails  to  find 
this  thought  in  his  edition  of  Kant,  or  that  he  finds 
others  that  do  not  run  parallel  with  it,  we  shall  not 
quarrel  about  a  matter  commentators  have  always 
quarreled  about. 

If  Kant  as  a  critic  has  been  keen  to  point  out  the 
inadequacy  of  any  proof  of  God,  he  has  been  no 
less  earnest  in  his  purpose  of  showing  that  no  dis- 
proof can  come  to  us.  This  world  is  one  that  for 
aught  we  know  fnay  be  God's  world,  and  if  we 
choose  to  live  as  though  it  were  God's  world  and 
we  were  of  his  kingdom,  we  need  fear  to  meet  no 
facts  that  would  block  our  way  and  deny  us. 

Doesn't  it  lie  near  to  hand  to  say  —  You  can 
make  this  God's  world  if  you  want  to?  You  can 
make  yourself  free,  immortal  and  blest  of  heaven 
if  that  is  the  deepest  desire  in  you,  for  in  all  its 
moral  aspects  this  world  of  yours  is  a  plastic  world 
and  will  respond  delicately  to  your  touch.  Live 
then  as  though  there  were  a  God,  and  there  will 
indeed  be  onej   the  world  will  be  divine. 

I  have  called  Kant's  world  the  Old  Testament 
world  and  you  have  seen  in  what  sense  it  may  be 
called  soj  but  if  you  try  to  think  of  this  world  as 
the  mediaeval  writers  are  supposed  to  have  thought 

146 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

of  it,  then  Kant's  religion  must  be  in  flat  con- 
tradiction with  itself.  If  God  is  such  a  God,  if 
his  creative  act  is  such  a  gesture  as  a  Michael  Angelo 
might  paint,  if  life  after  death  is  such  a  life  and 
spent  in  such  places  as  a  Dante  might  describe,  then 
all  Kant's  religion  is  but  a  leap  in  the  dark.  The 
thing  reduces  to  something  like  Pascal's  wager  — 
bet  on  God,  and  if  you  lose  you  lose  nothing  j  if 
you  win  you  win  everything.  If  God,  freedom, 
and  immortality  are  facts  hid  behind  a  curtain  that 
we  may  never  tear  aside,  we  can  only  take  a  chance 
with  such  facts.  I  have  already  made  my  bow  to 
those  who  find  other  things  in  Kant  than  the 
religion  I  pretend  to  have  drawn  from  him  —  and 
I  had  particularly  in  mind  such  as  understand  Kant 
throughout  to  be  thinking  of  the  truths  of  religion 
as  just  such  facts  hid  behind  the  curtain.  I  have 
refused  to  quarrel  with  those  interpreters  because 
Kant  does  think,  because  Kant  can  not  cure  himself 
of  thinking  in  such  terms  through  many  pages. 
But  this  I  take  to  be  obvious  —  if  this  fashion  of 
thinking  were  the  only  one  possible  in  view  of  the 
situation  in  which  science  and  religion  find  them- 
selves, if  it  is  not  merely  a  peculiarity  of  the  man 
Kant  and  his  personal  psychology,  then  those  who 
followed  on  him,  Fichte,  Schelling,  Hegel,  were 
deeply  deceived  in  supposing  that  Kant  was  their 

147 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

inspiration  5  the  post-Kantian  development  was  not 
a  development  but  a  new  creation. 

Viewing  Kant  then  in  the  light  of  the  appeal 
which  he  made  to  his  own  times,  we  may  see  that 
for  him  religion  is  not  a  matter  of  what  one  decides 
to  believe,  but  of  what  one  decides  to  do.  And 
the  religious  consciousness  may  express  the  law  of 
its  doing  in  the  determination  to  live  as  though 
there  were  a  God.  But  we  must  ask  it  of  Kant  to 
explain  to  us  what  sort  of  a  life  this  religious  life 
would  be. 

One  can  quite  make  it  out  that  the  first  condition 
to  the  living  of  such  a  life  is  to  obey  the  voice  of 
duty  as  though  it  were  the  voice  of  God.  That 
is,  to  obey  it  without  letting  our  obedience  hang  on 
our  insight  into  the  purpose  to  be  worked  out,  or 
on  the  satisfaction  we  are  to  find  in  or  because  of 
the  doing.  Just  so  was  the  Decalogue  presented  for 
the  acceptance  of  the  Children  of  Israel.  But  for 
them  the  way  of  duty  was  revealed  by  God  himself  j 
for  Kant  it  must  be  revealed  by  the  reason  which 
accepts  it.  What  sort  of  a  law  does  this  "  practical 
reason,"  as  Kant  calls  it,  reveal? 

Kant's  first  formulation  is  imperfect  enough,  and 
seems  to  be  based  on  an  efFort  to  deduce  the  con- 
tent of  moral  law  from  the  meaning  of  law  itself 

148 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

—  as  though  to  say,  the  command  "  Be  law-abid- 
ing "  furnished  one  with  all  needed  information 
respecting  the  law  by  which  one  was  to  abide.  For, 
as  Kant  puts  the  matter,  law  must  prescribe  a  type 
of  action  that  is  possible  for  everybody  —  a  mean- 
ing of  law  which  is  well  rendered  by  the  common 
phrase,  "  What  is  right  for  one  is  right  for  all." 
And  just  as  one  might  try  to  convince  a  man  of  the 
iniquity  of  some  particular  act  of  his  by  putting  to 
him  the  question.  Suppose  everybody  were  to  do 
that?  so  Kant  at  this  stage  feels  that  we  could  try 
out  the  validity  of  any  given  type  of  act  by  putting 
the  same  question  to  ourselves.  Suppose  the  right 
to  lie  were  up  for  consideration  j  if  lying  is  morally 
right,  then  it  must  be  possible  for  everybody  to  lie. 
But  if  everybody  tried  to  lie,  there  would  be  no  such 
thing  as  a  lie,  for  a  lie  requires  someone  to  believe 
it  as  well  as  someone  to  utter  it.  Universal  lying 
would  be  impossible  3  the  maxim,  "  Be  a  good  liar," 
could  not  be  generalized  into  a  law. 

"  So  act  that  the  maxim  of  your  conduct  could 
become  a  universal  law."  ^  This  is  the  formula  that 
Kant  finds  first  of  all  for  the  full  duty  of  man. 
But  of  course  on  this  basis  one  could  not  sell  a  share 

^  The  exact  wording:  "  Handle  so,  dass  die  Maxlme  deines 
Willens  jederzeit  zugleich  als  Princip  einer  allgemeinen  Gesetz- 
gebung  gelten  konne."     K.  d.  p.  V.,  i,  i,  i. 

149 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

of  stock,  for  if  everybody  were  to  try  it,  there 
would  be  no  market.  On  the  other  hand  Kant 
himself  has  only  a  tortured  and  inadequate  account 
to  give  of  the  reason  why  one  should  not  commit 
suicide,  for  it  looks  as  though  we  might  all  do  that 
much  together. 

More  interesting  is  Kant's  second  attempt  to 
formulate  the  law  of  duty.  Almost  against  his 
will,  one  would  say,  Kant  is  forced  to  consider  the 
act  from  the  point  of  view  of  its  purpose.  The 
purpose  of  a  moral  act  must  be  such  that  everybody 
may  pursue  the  same  purpose.^  An  immoral  world 
is  one  in  which  many  want  a  thing  that  can  not  be 
shared  —  Kant  recalls  with  humor  the  remark  of 
King  Francis,  that  he  and  his  brother  Charles  were 
in  perfect  accord  for  both  wanted  the  same  thing 
—  namely  the  possession  of  Milan.  A  moral  world 
is  one  in  which  no  desires  are  contradictory. 

The  moment  Kant  has  said  this  he  has  made  the 

^  Cf :  "  In  der  ganzen  Schopfung  kann  alles  was  man  will, 
und  voriiber  man  etwas  vermag,  auch  bloss  ah  Mittel  gebraucht 
werden;  nur  der  Mensch  .  .  .  ist  Zweck  an  sich  selbst.  .  .  . 
Eben  um  dieser  willen  ist  jeder  Wille  .  .  .  auf  die  Bedingung 
der  Einstimmung  mit  der  Autonomie  des  verniinftigen  Wesens 
eingeschrankt,  es  namlich  keiner  Absicht  zu  unterwerfen,  die 
nicht  nach  einem  Gesetze,  welches  aus  dem  Willen  des  leiden- 
den  Subjects  selbst  entspringen  konnte,  moglich  ist.  .  .  ."  K. 
d.  p.  v.,  I,  I,  3. 

150 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

moral  world  an  ideal,  an  image  of  a  world  not 
identical  with  this  present  one,  but  into  which  our 
faith  demands  that  the  present  one  may  by  our 
effort  evolve.  It  is  impossible  so  far  as  I  can  see 
to  make  Kant^s  first  impression  of  duty  square  with 
this  account  of  it.  It  cannot  be  that  duty  is  a 
simple  certain  command  that  the  humblest  under- 
standing can  grasp.  It  must  be  that  duty  is  a  more 
or  less  vague  striving  toward  this  ideal,  a  striving 
to  make  the  world  in  which  we  live  with  one  an- 
other approximate  more  and  more  closely  to  this 
beautiful  republic  whose  motto  might  be  modeled 
after  Rabelais,  "  ^  Fais  ce  que  voudras,'  et  ne  nuis 
pas  a  ton  voisin."  ^  Religion  then  is  the  determina- 
tion to  allow  nothing  to  divert  us  from  this  struggle 
which  it  would  not  be  out  of  place  to  call  the  struggle 
after  divinity.  Immortality  would  be  a  direction, 
not  a  condition.  Happiness  —  the  religious  happi- 
ness —  the  sense  of  the  progress  to  which  we  are 
contributing.  All  this  seems  to  flow  naturally  from 
the  Kantian  conception,  but  Kant  has  that  in  him 
which  will  not  let  such  results  follow.  He  stands 
divided  against  himself.  His  theory  of  duty  as 
decalogue  law,  his  less  confident  but  no  less  endur- 
ing conception  of  the  object  of  religion  as  facts 
behind  a  veil,  stand  in  contradiction  with  his  view 

^  Pierre  Louys. 


IMMANUEL    KANT 

of  duty  as  a  struggle  that  must  be  more  or  less 
blind,  baffled,  and  empirical  toward  a  goal  infinitely 
remote. 

In  this  contradiction  we  must  leave  him.  Re- 
ligion, as  the  name  for  a  search  after  the  kind  of 
reality  in  which  are  reconciled  the  multiple  strivings 
that  leave  us  divided  each  within  himself  and  one 
from  another,  was  the  deep  inspiration  of  those  who 
followed  Kant.  They  thought  they  owed  this  in- 
spiration to  the  master,  and  so  indeed  they  didj  but  it 
is  not  surprising  that  Kant  himself  refused  to  recog- 
nize his  immediate  ofFspring  (Fichte)  and  would 
probably  have  been  greatly  shocked  at  the  specula- 
tions of  his  more  remote  progeny.  Nor  is  it  sur- 
prising to  one  accustomed  to  the  disappointments 
of  which  the  history  of  thought  is  the  living 
chronicle  that  one  of  those  inspired  by  Kant  to  this 
very  search  should  have  ended  his  seeking  with  the 
tragic  finding  that  the  harmonious  will  is  an  illusion 
and  a  contradiction.  Will  is  essentially  war,  cries 
Schopenhauer,  There  is  that  in  the  experience  of 
every  man  which  forces  him  to  give  ear  to  this  cry, 
voicing  though  it  does  the  deepest  and  final  denial 
of  all  that  is  religious. 


152 


VI 

ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER 

1788-1860 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

We  live  in  a  room  that  has  a  dark  corner.  The 
shadows  are  there  and  we  know  they  are  there  j  but 
we  will  not  look  their  way.  We  busy  ourselves 
with  a  thousand  things  that  are  doubtless  important  j 
we  sit  by  the  lamp  and  are  doubtless  full  of  cheer- 
ful thoughts.  It  is  held  to  be  wise  to  behave  in 
this  way,  and  if  the  things  we  busy  ourselves  with 
are  really  important  then  it  may  be  admitted  that 
our  conduct  is  really  wise.  But  back  there  among 
the  shadows,  the  darkest  of  them  all,  lurks  the 
spirit  of  questioning.  "  What  is  the  use?  "  it  keeps 
asking,  "  What  is  the  use?  "  If  we  listen  we  are 
lost,  yet  those  who  have  listened  and  lost  them- 
selves tell  us  that  there  is  such  peace  to  be  had  of 
knowing  the  worst  that  compared  with  it  the  prizes 
of  struggling  life  are  but  children's  toys. 

"  To  see  where  the  worst  problems  of  life  lie," 
writes  a  philosopher  of  our  own  day,  "  is  a  very 
black  experience.  And  yet,  so  much  does  human 
reason  live  on  insight  that  I  have  never  met  a  man 
who  was  alive  to  those  deepest  problems  and  who 
repented  him  of  his  insight."^ 

^  Royce. 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

Now  the  one  to  whom  of  all  men  this  insight 
into  the  deep  abyss  has  been  vouchsafed  was  Arthur 
Schopenhauer.  According  to  the  older  ideas  of 
tragedy,  the  world  has  at  times  and  in  spots  seemed 
sad  enough  5  but  Schopenhauer  invented  a  new  con- 
ception of  tragedy,  more  ingeniously  painful  than 
any  that  had  gone  before,  and  then  he  showed  that 
the  play  which  most  completely  set  forth  this  idea 
was  just  the  whole  of  life. 

The  work  in  which  this  thought  is  most  system- 
atically developed  bears  the  double  title,  "  On  the 
World  as  Will  and  Idea  (Vorstellung),"  whose 
first  edition  appeared  in  1818.  We  may  safely  con- 
fine ourselves  to  this  single  work  in  our  present 
study  of  Schopenhauer,  for  his  life  was  one  of  those 
lives  that  move  rapidly  to  a  moment  of  maturity 
then  subside  into  a  ruminating  reflection  on  their 
achievement. 

To  have  reached  at  thirty  a  life-view  from  which 
one  never  afterwards  departs  might  be  taken  to 
argue  either  a  certain  shallowness  of  mind  or  an 
unusual  depth  of  conviction.  One  recalls  the  sixty- 
year-old  Kant,  painfully  struggling  with  a  bare 
theory  of  method,  and  then  for  some  twenty  years 
more  laboring  to  apply  this  method  to  the  prob- 
lems of  life  with  results  so  vigorously  reacting  on 
the  method  itself  as  to  have  created  a  suspicion  of 

156 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

change  of  view.  It  is  certain  that  in  contrast  with 
Kant,  Schopenhauer  leaves  an  impression  of  facility 
in  thought  and  style.  This  effect  is  no  doubt  partly 
to  be  accounted  for  by  a  difference  in  upbringing 
and  in  the  circumstances  surrounding  production. 
Kant  was  the  very  complete  university  professor  j 
Schopenhauer,  a  man  of  the  world  whose  one  early 
experiment  in  academic  life  was  a  most  convincing 
failure.  He  alone  of  all  the  great  names  that 
recognize  Kant  as  master  —  Fichte,  Schelling, 
Hegel  —  had  the  assured  position  and  material 
means  to  spare  himself  the  laborious  training  of  one 
who  would  enter  the  academic  lists.  Free  then  to 
live  as  he  would,  he  develops  the  tastes  and  the 
methods  of  the  private  scholar  of  means,  reflecting 
the  experience  of  an  easy  bachelor  existence  of  inns, 
and  travel,  and  wide  unsystematic  reading. 

It  is  the  early  training  doubtless  of  one  intended 
for  a  higher  social  stratum,  that  imposes  on  Schopen- 
hauer a  sense  of  obligation  to  be  lordly  3  a  style  that 
is  free,  rather  grand,  perhaps  a  bit  overdressed  j  a 
certain  insolence  of  tone  from  which  even  his 
friends  suffer  at  times,  and  which  when  it  is  ques- 
tion of  his  enemies  sinks  to  a  level  of  abuse  whose 
epithets  must  be  shadowed  forth  with  initial  and 
dash. 

But  apart  from  these  external  conditions,  one 

157 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

recognizes  in  Schopenhauer  the  spirit  of  the  fighter 
rather  than  that  of  the  critic.  He  is  a  man  of  one 
idea,  embraced  as  soon  as  encountered,  then  de- 
fended with  boldness  and  eloquence  and  wit.  Such 
a  character  hardly  develops  the  great  thinker  5  but  it 
may  well  be  possessed  of  a  great  thought.  The 
thought  of  Schopenhauer  is  none  the  less  great  for 
being  gloomy  and  repellant. 

The  double  title,  "The  World  as  Will  and 
Idea,"  hints  at  a  double  aspect  that  experience  pre- 
sents, the  one  to  the  eye  of  the  observer,  the  other 
to  the  mind  of  the  thinker.  To  the  observing  eye, 
it  is  a  spread  of  bodies  in  space  and  time,  obeying 
the  laws  of  mechanical  necessity j  just  such  a  world 
as  Kant  has  described  in  his  "  Kritik  der  reinen  Ver- 
nunft."  Schopenhauer,  following  Kant,  calls  this 
the  world  of  appearance,  the  phenomenal  world. 

But  when  we  say  "  a  world  of  appearances  "  we 
seem  to  hint  at  a  something  that  appears,  and  ap- 
pears not  to  the  eye  that  follows  the  mechanical 
behavior  of  bodies  in  space  and  time  but  as  revealed 
to  the  thought  of  one  who  asks:  Wherefore  this 
agitated  phenomenon?  Just  as,  watching  my  neigh- 
bor move  and  gesticulate,  I  ask  myself:  What  is  it 
all  about?  so,  seeing  Nature  a-quiver,  I  ask  myself: 
What  does  she  mean?     And  just  as  my  neighbor's 

158 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

conduct  is  understood  when  I  have  caught  the  pur- 
pose, the  motive  that  inspires  it,  so  I  may  be 
expected  to  have  reached  the  "  real  nature ''  of  the 
fleeting  world  if  I  can  but  find  the  will  which  it 
expresses. 

It  is  then  the  World  as  Will  that  profoundly 
interests  Schopenhauer,  as  it  has  profoundly  inter- 
ested all  men,  from  the  most  primitive  that  have 
implored  the  gods,  to  the  most  cautiously  reflective 
who,  like  Kant,  have  felt  confident  of  at  least  this 
much,  that  no  definition  of  a  good  life  was  possible 
that  did  not  postulate  a  world-purpose. 

Now  the  plainest  man  can  assure  himself  that 
there  are  enough  —  alas,  too  many  —  purposes  to 
be  found  in  nature  for  the  looking.  There  are 
mine  and  yours,  that  of  our  country,  of  our  human 
race,  of  other  races  too,  for  the  lower  animals  have 
disputed  the  world  with  us,  as  the  vegetables  have 
disputed  it  with  them.  But  when  one  asks  one- 
self: What  ultimate  purpose  is  served  by  all  this 
disputing  for  a  foothold?  then  indeed  one's  imagi- 
nation is  put  to  the  test.  There  are  too  many  pur- 
poses, there  is  too  little  purpose,  to  let  this  search 
for  nature's  will  with  us  end  in  a  quick  and  happy 
finding. 

All  this  is  matter  of  common  knowledge  and 
common  experience,  yet   how   few   have   had   the 

159 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

courage  to  give  up  hope  in  an  ultimate  happy  find- 
ing, and  how  easily  is  this  hope  deceived  with 
dreams,  how  willingly  does  it  dispense  with  proof. 
Here  indeed  is  the  region  in  which  "  the  heart  has 
its  reasons  that  the  reason  does  not  understand." 
Well,  it  is  Schopenhauer's  great  act  of  courage  that 
the  purpose  he  was  unable  to  find  he  refused  to  hope 
for  5  the  reason  that  the  reason  could  not  understand 
he  closed  his  heart  to.  Resolutely,  he  searched  the 
the  dark  corner  and  finally  stared  at  the  shadow. 

"  Everywhere  in  nature  we  see  strife,  conflict  and 
alternation  of  victory." 

"  Every  kind  of  being  fights  for  the  matter,  the 
space,  and  the  time  of  the  others.  This  strife  may 
be  followed  throughout  the  whole  of  nature,  but 
most  distinctly  in  the  animal  kingdom.  For  the 
animals  have  the  whole  of  the  vegetable  kingdom 
for  their  food,  while  within  the  animal  kingdom 
every  beast  is  the  prey  and  food  of  another.  So 
does  the  will  to  live  everywhere  prey  upon  itself 
till  finally  we  come  to  the  human  race.  This,  be- 
cause it  subdues  all  others,  regards  nature  as  a 
manufactory  of  things  for  its  use.  Yet  even  the 
human  race  reveals  within  itself  with  terrible  dis- 
tinctness the  same  conflict  j  the  same  variance  with 
itself  of  the  will  to  live,  and  we  cry  homo  homini 

lufUS,^^  ^  1  Abridged. 

1 60 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

This  picture  of  universal  warfare  is  the  first  scene 
in  Schopenhauer's  world-tragedy  j  but  it  is  far  from 
the  climax.  It  is  in  itself  not  even  tragic,  for  is  it 
not  an  aspect  of  nature  that  however  much  it  may 
suggest  of  defeat  and  suffering  it  must  reveal  just 
as  much  of  triumph  and  glory?  For  every  victim 
a  victor,  and  may  we  not  suppose  that  some  prin- 
ciple of  justice  awards  the  pains  and  pleasures  of 
it  all? 

But  no,  Schopenhauer  goes  relentlessly  on.  The 
conqueror  is  crowned  with  vanity  and  his  spoils  are 
illusions: 

"  The  inner  being  of  nature  is  a  striving  without 
rest  and  without  respite.  ...  a  willing  and  striv- 
ing that  may  very  well  be  compared  to  an  unquench- 
able thirst.  But  since  the  basis  of  all  willing  is 
need,  deficiency  and  thus  pain,  the  nature  of  brute 
and  man  alike  is  originally  and  of  its  very  essence 
subject'  to  pain.  If  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  deprived 
of  objects  of  desire  through  too  easy  satisfaction, 
such  void  and  ennui  fills  the  heart  that  existence 
becomes  an  unbearable  burden  to  it.  Thus  life 
swings  like  a  pendulum  from  pain  to  ennui,  from 
ennui  to  pain."  And  Schopenhauer  finds  an  odd 
unconscious  recognition  of  this  truth  in  the  popular 
imaginings  concerning  heaven  and  hell.  "  After 
man  had  transferred  all  pain  and  torments  to  hell," 

i6i 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

he  notes  with  an  amused  cynicism,  "  there  then  re- 
mained nothing  but  ennui  to  furnish  heaven  with.^' 
The  survivor  of  the  struggle  for  existence  is  on 
these  terms  hardly  a  being  to  be  envied,  and  the 
"  terque  quaterque  beati  ^^  must  often  come  to  his 
lips  as  he  recalls  those  who  have  fallen.  Indeed, 
it  is  exactly  that  place  in  the  scale  of  existence 
which  gives  advantage  in  the  struggle,  that  brings 
with  it  a  consciousness  of  the  vanity  of  this  same 
struggle.  It  is  exactly  to  man,  who  in  his  moment 
of  pride  has  thought  nature  a  "  manufactory  of 
things  for  his  use,"  that  is  given  the  most  poignant 
sense  of  alternating  hunger  and  satiety.  This  most 
necessitous  of  all  beings  "  stands  upon  the  earth, 
left  to  himself,  uncertain  about  everything  except 
his  own  lack  and  misery.  Consequently  the  care 
for  the  maintenance  of  that  existence  under  exact- 
ing demands  which  are  renewed  every  day  occupies 
as  a  rule  the  whole  of  human  life.  To  this  is 
directly  related  a  second  claim,  the  propagation  of 
the  species.  Here  he  is  threatened  from  all  sides 
by  the  most  different  kinds  of  danger,  from  which 
it  requires  constant  watchfulness  to  escape.  With 
cautious  steps  and  casting  anxious  glances  around  he 
pursues  his  path  —  thus  he  went  as  a  savage,  thus 
he  goes  in  civilized  life  3  and  there  is  no  security  for 
him. 

162 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

Qualibus  in  tenebris  vitae,  quantisque  periclis 
Degitur  hoc  oevi,  quodcumquest. 

"  Life  is  a  sea  full  of  rocks  and  whirlpools  which 
man  avoids  with  the  greatest  care  and  solicitude, 
although  he  knows  that  even  if  he  succeeds  in  get- 
ting through  with  all  his  efforts  and  skill,  he  comes 
thus  but  the  nearer  at  every  tack  to  the  greatest,  the 
total,  the  inevitable  shipwreck,  death." 

And  Schopenhauer  rounds  off  the  whole  with 
these  lines,  "  Thus,  between  desiring  and  attaining 
all  human  life  flows  on.  The  wish  is  in  its  nature 
pain,  the  attainment  .  .  .  satiety:  the  end  is  an 
illusion  and  possession  takes  away  charm.  The  wish, 
the  need,  presents  itself  under  a  new  form,  or  when 
it  does  not,  follows  desolateness,  emptiness,  ennui 
against  which  the  conflict  is  just  as  painful  as  against 
want."  And  just  as  the  superior  animal  is  the  most 
suffering  of  all  animals,  so  the  superior  man  is  the 
most  suffering  of  all  men.  The  calm  joy  of  sci- 
ence, the  pleasure  of  the  beautiful,  the  delight  in  art 
—  "  these  things  demanding  rare  talents  are  granted 
to  very  few,  and  to  those  few  only  as  a  passing  dream. 
And  then  even  these  few  on  account  of  their  higher 
intellectual  power  are  made  susceptible  of  far 
greater  suffering  than  duller  minds  can  ever  feel. 
Moreover  such  men  are  placed  in  lonely  isolation  by 


163 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

a  nature  obviously  different  from  that  of  others,  so 
that  here  too  accounts  are  squared." 

As  for  the  ordinary  man,  his  being  "  is  a  weary 
longing  and  complaining,  a  dreamlike  staggering 
through  the  four  ages  of  life  to  death  —  accompa- 
nied by  a  series  of  trivial  thoughts." 

"  Every  human  being  and  his  course  of  life  is  but 
another  short  dream  of  the  endless  spirit  of  nature, 
the  persistent  will  to  live^  is  only  another  fleeting 
form  which  [nature]  carelessly  sketches  in  its  infi- 
nite pages  .  .  .  allows  to  remain  for  a  time  so 
short  it  vanishes  into  nothing  .  .  .  and  then  ob- 
literates to  make  new  room." 

From  a  previous  passage  touching  on  the  life  and 
character  of  Schopenhauer  it  may  have  been  gath- 
ered that  his  was  no  very  lovable  personality.  And 
being  unlovable,  it  is  not  surprising  that  he  was  little 
loved  j  neither  by  wife  nor  child,  which  he  had  notj 
neither  by  mother  nor  sister,  which  he  had  and  of- 
fended 3  nor  yet  by  close  friends  which  if  he  had  for 
a  moment  he  usually  managed  to  estrange.  It  is 
true,  perhaps,  that  his  dog  loved  him,  the  inseparable 
poodle  whom  the  children  of  the  neighborhood  used 
to  call  der  junge  Schopenhauer,  for  the  tenderest 
side  of  Schopenhauer's  make-up  was  turned  toward 
dumb  animals.    But  the  love  of  a  dog  is  a  poor  sub- 

164 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

stitute  for  all  other  loves,  and  it  is  not  surprising 
that  certain  minds  to  whom  optimism  is  a  foregone 
conclusion  should  have  dismissed  Schopenhauer  with 
the  observation  that  to  him  who  looks  through 
clouded  glasses  the  world  must  needs  be  dark. 

If  we  are  tempted  to  make  this  easy  comment, 
we  should  remember  the  note  that  Schopenhauer  is 
never  tired  of  appending  to  his  pages,  the  reminder 
that  he  stands  not  alone  but  is  the  expression  of 
whole  races  and  civilizations.  He  is  heir  to  the  deep 
pessimism  of  the  East,  of  Brahminism,  of  Buddhism, 
that  called  life  a  "  veil  of  illusion,"  and  figured  one 
attached  to  its  purposeless  turning  as  "  tied  to  the 
wheel  of  things."  He  is  the  voice  of  that  Christian- 
ity that  fled  to  the  desert,  and  hid  itself  in  monas- 
teries. He  could  repeat  after  the  "  Imitation  of 
Christ,"  "Truly  it  is  misery  even  to  live  upon  the 
earth.  The  more  spiritual  a  man  desires  to  be,  the 
more  bitter  does  this  life  become  to  him;  because 
he  sees  more  clearly  and  perceives  more  sensibly  the 
defects  of  human  corruption.  For  to  eat  and  to 
drink,  to  sleep  and  to  watch,  to  labor  and  to  rest,  to 
be  subject  to  the  necessities  of  nature  is  a  great  mis- 
ery and  affliction  to  a  religious  man,  who  would 
gladly  be  set  loose." 

No,  Schopenhauer  did  not  stand  alone  —  the  past 
was  behind  him,  and  as  it  proved  the  future  ready 

i6s 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

for  his  message.  Not  merely  among  the  technical 
philosophers  is  his  influence  to  be  traced,  but  in  that 
sensitive  expression  of  what  is  passing  in  the  heart 
of  his  age  —  the  artist.  Never  has  art  had  the  cour- 
age it  now  displays  to  conceive  the  tragedy  of  life  as 
Schopenhauer  thought  it  out  —  not  indeed  the 
drama  of  guilt  and  its  punishment,  the  ideal  of 
justice  working  itself  out  at  the  cost  of  individual 
pain.  This  is  the  older  conception  of  tragedy  — 
Schopenhauer  would  say  it  is  not  tragedy  at  all.  To 
the  modern  conception  tragedy  lies  in  the  percep- 
tion that  there  is  no  justice  in  the  world  —  only 
indifference,  only  chance,  only  stupidity.  One 
might  cite  works  of  Flaubert,  tales  of  Maupassant, 
pages  of  Anatole  France  j  but  most  notable  of  all, 
pretty  much  the  whole  literary  output  of  Thomas 
Hardy,  that  tireless  recorder  of  "  Life's  Little 
Ironies,"  that  bold  acknowledger  of  crass  casualty 
as  the  only  god  of  things.  Schopenhauer  does  not 
stand  alone  against  a  background  of  forgotten 
gloom  if  one  may  still  hear  the  voice  of  nature 
questioning  as  Hardy  heard  it: 

**  When  I  look  forth  at  dawning,  pool, 
Field,  flockj  and  lonely  tree 
All  seem  to  look  at  me 
Like  chastened  children  sitting  silent  in  a  school. 


i66 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

"  Their  faces  dulled,  constrained  and  worn, 
As  though  the  master's  ways 
Through  the  long  teaching  days 
Their  first  terrestrial  zest  had  chilled  and  overborne. 

"  And  on  them  stirs,  in  lippings  mere 

(As  if  once  in  clear  call, 

But  now  scarce  breathed  at  all) 
*  We  wonder,  ever  wonder,  why  we  find  us  here. 


(C  ( 


Has  some  vast  Imbecility 

Mighty  to  build  and  blend 

But  impotent  to  tend 
Framed  us  in  jest,  and  left  us  now  to  hazardry?  ' 

Thus  things  around.     No  answer  I  .  .   .  " 


It  is  time  we  come  to  the  question:  What  then? 
Life  is  a  misery,  and  then  what? 

"  The  door  is  open,"  said  Marcus  Aurelius.  "  The 
door  is  open,  if  the  house  is  smoky,  leave  it."  It 
is  the  solution  of  antiquity,  and  Schopenhauer  him- 
self finds  it  much  more  reasonable  than  most  of 
the  reasons  that  have  been  urged  against  it.  Yet  it 
is  not  through  this  easily  opened  door  that  he  sees 
a  way  of  escape  from  the  ironic  will  to  live.  If  that 
will  had  a  date  and  a  local  habitation,  then  indeed 
to  kill  the  body  in  which  it  dwelt  would  put  an  end 
to  the  monster.     But  such  is  not  the  case.     Among 

167 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

the  accidents  of  time  and  space  you  happen  to  be 
one  3  but  had  you  not  been  one,  or  were  you  no 
longer  one,  the  game  would  play  itself  out  by  the 
same  rules,  only  another  pawn  would  be  on  the  spot 
that  was  yours.  Now  the  evil  of  the  game  is  not 
that  you  happen  to  be  one  of  the  pieces,  but  rather 
that  it  should  be  played  at  all.  Not  the  pawn,  but 
the  player  must  be  killed,  and  the  player  is  always 
that  brutal  Will  to  Live,  pitted  against  itself,  win- 
ning as  it  loses  and  losing  as  it  wins.  Step  out  of  it 
if  you  will,  what  does  he  care?  But  stay  in  it,  and  by 
doing  your  part  not  with  but  against  him  you  may 
not  only  emancipate  yourself  but  have  your  share 
in  putting  an  end  to  the  game  itself.  What  is  this 
part  to  be  played  by  each  against  the  Will  to  Live? 
We  shall  come  to  Schopenhauer's  account  of  it  in 
due  time,  meanwhile  it  is  certainly  not  the  impatient 
gesture  of  self-destruction. 

From  the  past  again  comes  another  answer  to  the 
question:  What  then?  It  takes  the  form  of  a  wine 
song,  and  we  catch  its  refrain  from  the  lips  of  singer 
after  singer.  "  Another  and  another  cup,"  cries 
Omar,  "  to  drown  the  memory  of  this  insolence." 

Well,  for  this  solution  too  Schopenhauer  has  his 
sympathy.  Not  for  the  wine  that  is  red,  to  be  sure, 
—  its  intoxication  is  too  brief,  the  awakening  too 
bitter  —  but  for  the  wine  of  beauty  wherever  it  is 

i68 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

to  be  found  in  nature  or  in  art.  It  is  most  natural 
that  Schopenhauer  —  for  whom  the  woe  of  life 
springs  from  the  possession  of  an  aggressive,  fight- 
ing selfhood  —  should  have  looked  for  solace  to 
that  beauty  in  which,  we  say,  we  forget  ourselves, 
before  which  we  stand  rapt.  The  eiffect  every  one 
knows  —  the  cause?  That  was  Schopenhauer's  pe- 
culiar contribution  to  the  theory  of  the  beautiful. 
In  a  word  his  explanation  is  this.  We  forget  our 
own  individuality  with  all  its  torment,  because  we 
are  seduced  by  the  beauty  of  the  thing  we  look  at 
to  forget  its  individuality. 

There  is  in  the  Louvre  a  somewhat  dirty  piece 
of  marble  whose  size  and  weight  with  the  story  of 
how  it  came  to  be  where  it  is,  may  be  found  in  the 
guide  books.  This  at  least  is  its  individual  descrip- 
tion. But  to  the  many  human  beings  who  have 
stood  rapt  before  the  Venus  de  Milo  there  has  ap- 
peared not  this  dirt,  nor  yet  this  marble,  nor  yet 
the  effigy  of  a  woman j  but  just  the  vision  of  woman- 
hood. And  therewith,  Schopenhauer  would  suggest, 
we  have  taken  a  step  out  of  the  contentious  world. 
It  is  no  longer  a  human  being  but  human  nature  we 
are  in  presence  of,  and  to  lose  oneself  in  nature  is, 
while  the  vision  lasts,  to  have  forgotten  the  will  to 
live  in  its  troublesome  individuality. 

While  the  vision  lasts!      But  the  trouble  here 

169 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

is  that  such  visions  will  not  last.  In  the  contempla- 
tion of  beauty  we  have  the  foretaste  of  peace  j  but 
not  the  peace  eternal.  And  the  question  comes  back 
upon  us:    What  is  to  be  done? 

The  answer  now  in  progressive  completeness 
comes  from  three  sources.  The  first  suggestion, 
imperfect  though  it  is,  we  catch  from  the  institution 
of  civil  law.  Now  law,  and  the  penalties  it  provides, 
is  a  conscious  effort  to  restrain  the  individual  from 
doing  wrong.  "  Wrong,"  meanwhile,  Schopen- 
hauer defines  as  "  that  quality  of  the  conduct  of  an 
individual  in  which  he  extends  the  assertion  of  the 
will  appearing  in  his  own  body  so  far  that  it  becomes 
the  denial  of  the  will  appearing  in  the  bodies  of 
others."  It  is  then  the  province  of  law  to  fix  as 
best  it  can  the  boundaries  that  enclose  a  man's  rights 
to  the  exercise  of  his  individual  will  and  to  prevent 
his  trespassing  or  being  trespassed  upon. 

But  this  rough  and  partial  method  of  restraining 
the  will  to  live  from  multiplying  the  misery  which 
it  creates  in  proportion  as  it  is  untrammeled  is  but 
palliative.  A  deeper  suggestion  than  that  offered 
by  formal  law  comes  from  an  examination  of  the 
moral  sense.  For  the  distinction  between  right  and 
wrong  as  drawn  by  temporal  justice  is  by  no  means 
identical  with  that  between  good  and  bad  as  intuited 
by  the  conscience  of  man.    For  wrong,  as  we  have 

170 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

seen,  means  merely  aggression,  and  right,  the  exer- 
cise of  will  that  commits  none  of  the  aggressions 
law  recognizes.  But  it  is  by  no  means  enough 
to  keep  within  one's  rights  to  possess  moral  worth. 
"  For  example,"  our  philosopher  points  out,  "  the 
refusal  of  help  to  another  in  great  need,  the  quiet 
contemplation  of  the  death  of  another  from  starva- 
tion while  we  ourselves  have  more  than  enough,  is 
certainly  cruel  and  fiendish,  but  it  is  not  a  wrong." 
What  then  constitutes  goodness?  The  quality  of 
goodness  consists  in  an  infinite  sympathy,  such  an 
intuition  of  the  misery  of  others  as  gives  us  a  horror 
of  inflicting  pain,  a  delicate  skill  in  alleviating  it. 
Now  all  the  misery  of  life  comes  from  the  assertion 
of  the  individual  will,  which  if  justice  may  indeed 
feebly  hold  in  check,  goodness  alone  can  eflfectively 
still  by  destroying  the  distinction  between  soul  and 
soul.  "  To  the  noble  man,"  we  find  Schopenhauer 
writing,  "  this  distinction  is  not  significant.  .  .  . 
The  suffering  which  he  sees  in  others  touches  him 
quite  as  his  own.  He  therefore  tries  to  strike  a 
balance  between  them,  denies  himself  pleasures, 
practices  renunciation,  in  order  to  mitigate  the  suf- 
ferings of  others.  He  sees  that  the  distinction  be- 
tween himself  and  others,  which  to  the  wicked  man 
is  so  great  a  gulf,  only  belongs  to  a  fleeting  and 
illusive  phenomenon.     He  recognizes  directly  and 

171 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

without  reasoning  that  the  in-itself  of  his  own  mani- 
festation is  also  that  of  others,  the  will  to  live  which 
constitutes  the  inner  nature  of  everything  and  lives 
in  all  5  indeed,  that  this  applies  also  to  the  brutes 
and  the  whole  of  nature,  and  therefore  he  will  not 
cause  suffering  even  to  a  brute."  And  yet  this  con- 
ception of  the  good  life,  this  living  in  sympathy 
and  doing  works  of  love,  beautiful  as  the  ideal  of 
it  is,  is  not  the  final  cure  for  the  world's  misery. 
The  will  to  live,  even  so  chastened,  has  not  lost  all 
of  its  genius  for  harm. 

"  If  the  veil  of  Maya,"  our  thinker  has  it,  "  is 
lifted  from  the  eyes  of  a  man  to  such  an  extent 
that  he  no  longer  makes  the  egotistical  distinction 
between  his  person  and  that  of  another,  .  .  .  then  it 
clearly  follows  that  such  a  man,  who  recognizes  all 
beings  as  his  own  inmost  and  true  self,  must  also 
regard  the  infinite  suffering  of  all  suffering  beings 
as  his  own,  and  take  on  himself  the  pain  of  the 
whole  world.  .  .  .  All  the  miseries  of  others 
which  he  sees  and  is  so  seldom  able  to  alleviate,  all 
the  miseries  he  knows  directly,  and  even  those  which 
he  only  knows  as  possible,  work  upon  his  mind  as 
his  own.  .  .  .  Why  should  he  now,  with  such 
knowledge  of  the  world  assert  this  very  life  through 
constant  acts  of  will,  and  thereby  bind  himself  ever 
more  closely  to  it,  hug  it  ever  more  closely  to  hira- 

172 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

self?  "  Should  not  rather,  we  ask,  this  bitter  world- 
knowledge  become  a  permanent  and  final  quieter 
of  all  and  of  every  volition?  Should  not  the  will 
now  turn  away  from  life,  shuddering  at  the  pleas- 
ures it  once  craved,  but  in  which  it  has  come  to  rec- 
ognize that  assertion  of  life  which  is  the  fountain 
of  misery? 

And  Schopenhauer  expounds  his  meaning  in  a 
parable.  "If  we  compare  life  to  a  course  which 
we  must  unceasingly  run  —  a  path  of  glowing  coals, 
with  a  few  cool  places  here  and  there  j  then  he  who 
is  entangled  in  illusion  is  consoled  by  the  cool  places, 
on  which  he  now  stands  or  which  he  sees  near  him, 
and  sets  out  to  run  the  course.  But  he  who  sees 
through  the  [illusion  that  separates  the  ^  here '  and 
*  there  ']  and  thus  recognizes  the  whole,  is  no  longer 
susceptible  of  such  consolation  j  he  sees  himself  at 
all  places  at  once  —  and  withdraws." 

This  is  the  transition  from  virtue  to  asceticism 
and  here  we  have  the  last  word  of  Schopenhauer's 
doctrine  of  the  cure.  Suicide  is  a  mistake j  enjoy- 
ment of  beauty  a  true  solace,  but  a  momentary  one. 
Restrictions  devised  by  society  are  a  corrective,  but 
the  misery  they  can  prevent  is  as  a  drop  to  an  ocean  j 
morality  which  is  at  bottom  a  charity  born  of  sym- 
pathy is  the  best  the  world  has  dreamed,  it  destroys 

173 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

more  and  more  the  individual  will  and  makes  all 
things  one,  but  though  men  in  the  ideal  state  moral- 
ity might  produce  would  suffer  together,  they 
would  still  suffer,  for  from  Schopenhauer's  point 
of  view  the  disjunction  is  final  j  "  Either  desire  un- 
satisfied, which  is  pain,  or  satisfied  desire,  which  is 


ennui." 


Well,  this  infinite  wretchedness  of  the  man  who 
has  made  the  round  of  experience  in  seeking  relief, 
who  has  rejected  suicide,  who  has  awakened  from 
the  dream  of  beauty  to  find  the  old  pain  still  there, 
who  has  tried,  then  lost  faith  in,  the  devices  of  law, 
who  has  become  at  last  a  "  Beautiful  Soul,"  to  find 
himself  then  the  sharer  of  all  the  world's  misery, 
—  the  infinite  wretchedness  of  such  a  man  is  a  dis- 
ease, not  of  the  wrong  kind  of  will,  but  of  will 
itself.  All  will  is  evil  will,  and  if  one  would  have 
an  end  of  pain  one  must  refuse  to  will  at  allj  is  not 
this,  the  asceticism  of  Indian  sage  and  Christian 
saint,  the  oldest  and  the  ultimate  wisdom? 

Schopenhauer  takes  his  word  "  asceticism  "  quite 
seriously.  To  this  last  expression  of  human  insight 
it  no  longer  suffices  that  a  man  should  love  others 
as  himself  and  do  as  much  for  them  as  for  himself; 
"  but  there  arises  within  him  a  horror  of  the  nature 
of  which  his  own  (phenomenal)  existence  is  an  ex- 
pression, the  will  to  live,  the  kernel  and  inner  being 

174 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

of  that  world  which  is  recognized  as  full  of  misery. 
He  therefore  disowns  his  own  nature  which  appears 
in  him  and  is  already  expressed  through  his  body. 
His  body,  healthy  and  strong,  expresses  the  sexual 
impulse^  but  he  denies  the  will  and  gives  the  lie  to 
the  body.  It  thereby  denies  the  assertion  of  the 
will  which  extends  beyond  the  individual  life,  and 
gives  the  assurance  that  with  the  life  of  this  body, 
the  will,  whose  manifestation  it  is,  ceases. 

"Asceticism  shows  itself  further  in  voluntary 
poverty,  which  not  only  arises  fer  accidens  because 
the  possessions  are  given  away  to  mitigate  the  suflFer- 
ings  of  others,  but  is  here  an  end  in  itself,  is  meant 
to  serve  as  a  constant  mortification  of  will,  so  that 
the  satisfaction  of  the  wishes,  the  sweet  of  life  shall 
not  again  arouse  the  will  against  which  self-knowl- 
edge has  conceived  a  horror.  He  who  has  attained 
to  this  point  compels  himself  to  refrain  from  doing 
all  that  he  would  like  to  do,  and  to  do  all  that  he 
would  not  like  to  do,  even  if  this  has  no  further 
end  than  that  of  serving  as  a  mortification  of  will."  ^ 

And  Schopenhauer  becomes  the  exponent  of  that 
aspect  of  Christianity,  as  of  other  ascetic  creeds, 
which  is  so  unintelligible  to  the  pagan  ideals  of  man- 
hood, —  the  doctrine  of  meekness.  Since  the  ascetic 
"  himself  denies  the  will  which  appears  in  his  own 

^  Abridged. 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

person,  he  will  not  resist  if  another  does  the  same, 
i.e.  inflicts  wrongs  upon  him.  Therefore,  every  suf- 
fering coming  to  him  from  without,  through  chance 
or  the  wickedness  of  others,  is  welcome,  every  in- 
jury, ignominy,  and  insult  j  he  receives  them  gladly 
as  the  opportunity  of  learning  with  certainty  that  he 
no  longer  asserts  the  will,  but  gladly  sides  with  every 
enemy  of  the  manifestation  of  will  which  is  his  own 
person." 

In  his  manner  of  life  the  Schopenhauerian  as- 
cetic is  in  every  detail  a  copy  of  the  Eastern  and 
Western  monk.  His  body  he  nourishes  sparingly, 
lest  its  excessive  vigor  should  animate  the  will. 
When  at  last  death  comes,  it  is  most  welcome,  and 
is  gladly  received  as  a  longed-for  deliverance.  "  For 
him  who  thus  ends,  the  world  has  ended  also." 

"  For  him  who  thus  ends,  the  world  has  ended 
also."  The  seriousness  with  which  this  statement 
is  taken  marks  the  difference  between  the  two  great 
philosophies  of  asceticism,  the  Buddhistic  and  the 
Christian.  Whatever  the  Master  may  himself  have 
taught,  the  Christianity  of  the  Church,  say  of 
Augustine,  is  a  pessimism  respecting  the  world  we 
know,  backed  by  an  optimism  respecting  the  world 
we  know  not,  in  which  however  the  meaning  of 
the  whole  plot  is  made  clear.     The  nothingness  of 

176 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

the  world,  as  it  appears  to  the  eyes  of  the  Christian 
ascetic  is  then  the  nothingness  of  this  world,  but  for 
him  who  leaves  it  there  awaits  a  much  richer  life  in 
another.  For  the  Buddhist  saint,  no  optimism  of 
this  kind  supplements  his  pessimism,  no  other  world 
is  called  upon  to  explain  this  one,  and  when  he 
leaves  this  one  through  the  door  of  asceticism  it  is 
into  the  eternal  peace  of  Nirvana,  of  nothingness, 
that  he  sinks. 

It  is  the  latter  understanding  of  the  outcome  that 
Schopenhauer  accepts  at  the  hands  of  the  mystic 
East.  "  We  have  recognized,"  he  writes,  "  the  in- 
most nature  of  the  world  to  be  will,  and  all  its 
phenomena  to  be  but  embodiments  of  the  will,  and 
we  have  followed  this  embodiment  from  the  uncon- 
scious working  of  the  obscure  forms  of  nature  up  to 
the  completely  conscious  action  of  man.  Therefore 
we  shall  by  no  means  evade  the  consequence  that 
with  the  free  denial,  the  surrender  of  the  will,  all 
these  phenomena  are  also  abolished;  that  constant 
strain  and  effort  without  end  and  without  rest  at  all 
the  grades  of  objectivity  in  which  and  through  which 
the  world  consists;  the  multifarious  forms  succeed- 
ing each  other  in  gradation;  the  whole  manifesta- 
tion of  the  will  and  finally  the  universal  forms  of 
this   manifestation,   time   and   space,   and   also   its 


177 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

last  fundamental  form,  subject  and  object,  all  are 
abolished.    No  will:   no  idea,  no  world." 

"  Before  us  there  is  certainly  only  nothingness," 
Schopenhauer  concludes,  but  if  this  prospect  be  any- 
thing but  grateful  to  a  man,  it  must  be  because  he 
has  not  really  seen  or  accepted  the  truth  that  Scho- 
penhauer would  demonstrate  and  impart.  "  That 
we  abhor  annihilation,"  he  insists,  "  is  simply 
another  expression  of  the  fact  that  we  so  strenuously 
will  life."  Of  that  folly  and  the  pain  of  it  enough 
has  been  said.  "  But  if  we  turn  our  glances  from 
our  own  needy  and  embarrassed  condition  to  those 
who  have  overcome  the  world  .  .  .  then  instead 
of  the  useless  striving  and  eflfort,  .  .  .  instead  of 
the  never  satisfied  and  never  dying  hope  which  con- 
stitutes the  life  of  the  man  who  wills,  we  shall  see 
that  peace  which  passeth  understanding,  that  perfect 
calm  of  the  spirit,  that  deep  rest,  that  inviolable 
confidence  and  serenity,  the  mere  reflection  of  which 
in  the  countenance  as  Raphael  or  Correggio  has  rep- 
resented it  is  an  entire  and  certain  gospel  j  only 
knowledge  remains,  the  will  has  vanished." 

And  it  is  exactly  in  this  way  "  by  contemplation 
of  the  life  and  conduct  of  saints,  whom  it  is  cer- 
tainly rarely  granted  us  to  meet  with  in  our  own 
experience,  but  who  are  brought  before  our  eyes  by 
their  written  history,  and,  with  the  stamp  of  entire 

178 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER 

truth,  by  art,  that  we  may  banish  the  dark  impression 
of  that  nothingness  which  we  discern  behind  all  vir- 
tue and  holiness  as  their  final  goal,  and  which  we 
fear  as  children  fear  the  dark  .  .  .  What  re- 
mains after  the  abolition  of  the  will  is  for  all  those 
who  are  still  full  of  will  certainly  nothing  j  but 
conversely  to  those  in  whom  the  will  has  denied 
itself,  this  world  which  is  so  real,  with  all  its  suns 
and  milky-ways  —  is  nothing." 


179 


VII 
FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

1 844-1900 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

"  God  is  dead.  God  is  dead :  He  died  of  pity  " 
—  the  phrase  runs  refrain-like  through  the  "  Say- 
ings of  Zarathustra."  It  is  the  bright  news  that 
Nietzsche  brings  as  his  peculiar  contribution  to  the 
cause  of  human  hope.  These  are  the  glad  tidings 
for  whose  bringing  he  expects  that  his  feet  shall  be 
called  beautiful  upon  the  mountain.  Therefore  they 
dance,  these  feet,  and  bear  toward  us  one  who  laughs 
and  sings.  At  least  Nietzsche  would  have  us  believe 
that  truth  —  his  truth  —  "  comes  on  light  feet  " 
and  that  it  steps  to  music.  "  Let  the  day  be  counted 
lost,"  he  cries,  "  in  which  we  have  not  somewhat 
danced,  and  let  us  know  that  truth  to  be  false  which 
brings  no  laughter  with  it."  Yet,  whether  it  was 
that  truth  —  Nietzsche's  truth  —  had  somehow  not 
the  quality  of  joyousness  in  it,  or  whether  the  poor 
messenger  of  these  "  glad  tidings  "  was  the  victim 
of  ironical  chance,  certain  it  is  that  his  dance  brought 
him  to  the  doors  of  the  mad-house,  and  that  behind 
these  melancholy  doors  he  died. 

There  is  however  nothing  but  a  certain  strange- 
ness of  phrase  that  would  lead  one  to  associate  this 

183 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

particular  message  of  Nietzsche  with  his  later  insan- 
ity. It  is  no  new  idea  that  God  is  dead,  no  new 
expectation  that  the  news  will  be  grateful  to  all  who 
understand  its  import.  Xenophanes  near  the  be- 
ginning, Epicurus  and  Lucretius  toward  the  end  of 
pagan  thought  had  brought  the  same  intelligence. 
Only,  according  to  Xenophanes  the  Gods  had  died 
not  of  pity  but  of  vice.  "  Liars,  adulterers,  cheats 
are  the  vaunted  Lords  of  Olympus."  And  accord- 
ing to  Lucretius  it  was  again  not  of  pity  but  of 
their  cruelty  the  Gods  were  dead,  the  gods  of  that 
religion 

Quae  caput  a  caeh*  regionibus  ostendebat 
horribih   super  aspectu   mortalibus  instans. 

Nor  are  the  ancients  the  only  ones  to  whom  the 
world  has  appeared  godless.  If  for  Hume  God  was 
only  suspiciously  silent,  for  Schopenhauer  he  was 
conspicuously  absent.  Still,  it  was  far  enough  from 
Schopenhauer's  thought  that  a  God  could  die  of  pity. 
Pity  was  for  him  the  one  divine  thing  left  to  a  God- 
forsaken world  J  it  at  least  might  soften,  even  if  it 
could  not  cure  the  fundamental  cruelty  of  life.  It 
was  rather  the  unreason  of  the  world  that  forbade 
us  to  see  in  its  course  a  divine  guidance.  For 
Schopenhauer,  God  had  died  quite  mad. 

Vice,  cruelty,  reticence,  irrationality  —  these  had 

184 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

been  variously  recognized  as  ills  of  which  a  God 
might  die.  It  remained  for  Nietzsche  to  suggest 
that  the  most  fatal  of  all  disorders,  whether  in  God 
or  man,  was  just  that  gentlest  of  all  Christian  vir- 
tues —  Pity  or,  as  the  German  tongue  has  it, 
Mitleid:  fellow-suflfering.  In  the  understanding  of 
the  motives  that  led  Nietzsche  to  this  utterance  lies 
the  key  to  his  whole  philosophy  —  if  the  "  light- 
ning flashes  "  of  his  thought  may,  somewhat  against 
his  will,  be  called  a  "  philosophy." 

Virtues  like  races  —  perhaps  I  should  say  with 
races  —  have  their  ascendancy  and  their  decline. 
The  quality  of  pity  is  not  greatly  admired  of  strong 
young  peoples.  The  virtues  of  triumphant  pagan- 
dom were  made  of  sterner  stuff:  one  hears  much  of 
temperance,  of  courage,  of  wisdom,  of  justice j  little 
indeed  of  compassion.  It  is  with  Christianity  that 
faith,  hope,  and  charity  are  introduced  into  our 
culture,  and  throughout  Christendom  the  greatest  of 
these  remains  charity.  Thus  it  is  that  Nietzsche  al- 
ways refers  to  these  virtues  as  the  "  modern  idea," 
and  since  modernity  is  to  his  mind  desperately  sick, 
he  seeks  the  cause  of  its  disease  in  its  "  fixed  idea." 

Now  in  imagining  that  charity  or  pity  might  well 
be  a  symptom  of  weakness,  Nietzsche  does  not  stand 
alone  even  among  modern  thinkers.     Spinoza  for 

I8S 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

one  is  inclined  to  be  critical  of  the  excellence  of  pity. 
Why  pity  one's  neighbor  more  than  oneself?  And 
Why  pity  oneself  at  all?  Is  not  such  self-pity  a 
form  of  repining?  But  the  cure  for  repining  is 
understanding  —  the  understanding  that  all  things 
are  of  God.  One  might  as  well  regret  that  the  area 
of  one's  field  is  not  greater  than  the  product  of  its 
base  and  side,  as  that  the  length  of  one's  days  does 
not  exceed  three-score  years  and  ten.  And  Kant 
again  is  no  sympathetic  witness  to  the  virtue  of  pity. 
"  There  is  but  one  thing  good,"  he  has  said,  "  and 
that  is  a  good  will  "  —  the  will,  namely,  to  obey  the 
command  of  duty.  If  one  have  this  one  cannot  need 
pity  5  if  one  have  it  not  one  cannot  deserve  pity. 

But  Spinoza  and  Kant  are  in  this,  as  in  other  re- 
spects, exceptions  to  the  soft  mood  of  modern  senti- 
ment. With  Schopenhauer,  the  very  embodiment  of 
modernity,  we  have  seen  pity  once  more  set  on  high 
as  the  unselfish  virtue.  It  is  the  self-less  man  that 
becomes  the  holy  manj  it  is  the  holy  man  that  be- 
comes the  sage,  denying  the  world  with  its  pitiless 
Will-to-live. 

Now  it  is  against  this  very  philosophy  of  Scho- 
penhauer, against  this  conception  of  the  beauty  and 
wisdom  of  self -surrender  that  Nietzsche  reacts.  If 
to  Spinoza  pity  is  a  folly,  if  to  Kant  it  is  a  superflu- 
ity, to  Nietzsche  it  is  a  vice  —  more  than  a  vice,  a 

i86 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

disease,  that  deep  sickness  of  modernity  which  spells 
decadence.  Schopenhauer,  and  all  that  older  wis- 
dom which  Schopenhauer  loved,  of  Jesus  and  of 
Buddha,  these  were  Nietzsche's  great  denials,  these 
were  the  false  physicians  of  the  soul  that  had  made 
the  soul  sick  in  making  it  sad. 

If  Nietzsche  reacts  so  violently  against  the  teach- 
ing of  Schopenhauer,  it  is  not  because  he  is  by 
nature  precluded  from  appreciating  its  seduction.  It 
is  rather  because  he  had  at  one  time  in  his  life  too 
deeply  understood  and  too  completely  yielded  to 
its  soothing  counsel  of  surrender  that  he  later  bends 
all  his  energies  to  its  destruction.  This  complete 
revulsion  of  feeling  was  not  a  unique  episode  in 
Nietzsche's  experience.  On  the  contrary  his  intel- 
lectual life  is  largely  a  history  of  such  accepting  and 
rejecting.  Born  into  a  clergyman's  family,  passing 
his  childhood  in  quiet  Naumburg,  Nietzsche  in  his 
last  years  claims  the  name  of  Antichrist.  Eagerly 
connecting  himself  in  his  student  days  at  Bonn  with 
one  of  those  corps  that  treasured  the  republican 
ideals  of  '48,  he  advocates  in  his  later  years  a  social 
organization  modeled  on  the  caste-system  of  the 
East.  An  ardent  patriot  in  '70,  he  becomes  the  con- 
temner of  the  organized  state  in  general,  a  contemp- 
tuous critic  of  Germanism  in  particular.  A  trained 
student  of  history,  a  distinguished  professor  of  phil- 

187 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

ology  at  Basel,  some  of  his  most  cunning  and  cutting 
analyses  expose  the  weakness  of  the  learned  temper- 
ament. In  his  first  important  work,  "  The  Birth 
of  Tragedy,"  we  find  him  an  apostle  of  Wagner  5 
his  later  "  Case  of  Wagner  "  is  perhaps  the  cruelest 
polemic  against  a  man  and  his  art  of  which  modern 
letters  give  example. 

The  bare  enumeration  of  these  changes  is  bound 
to  leave  an  impression  of  waywardness.  Yet  this 
impression  would  be  in  so  far  false  that  it  is  clear 
each  accepting  was  a  matter  of  deep  feeling  with 
Nietzsche,  each  rejecting  cost  its  price.  At  times, 
to  be  sure,  he  would  put  on  a  brave  front  before  the 
spectacle  of  his  thought's  inconstancy.  Only  those 
that  can  change  can  grow:  "  I  love  those  that 
change,"  he  writes.  But  at  other  times  there  is  more 
of  melancholy  in  his  recalling  of  abandoned  ideals. 
"  If  thinking  be  thy  destiny,  then  honor  that  des- 
tiny with  divine  honors  3  sacrifice  to  it  thy  best  and 
thy  dearest."  It  is  not  without  reason  that  he  calls 
the  progress  of  his  thoughts  a  "  Selbstuberwindung  " 
and  one  may  best  understand  the  fierce  bitterness  of 
his  attack  upon  those  he  has  put  behind  him  if  one 
remember  that  nothing  less  than  hatred  could  re- 
place an  old  love  in  this  too  tenacious  heart. 

It  is  then  of  a  piece  with  the  rest,  if  a  philosophy 
which  in  the  end  represented  the  dearest  foe  of  his 

188 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

thought  should  have  been  the  friend  and  guide  of 
Nietzsche's  youth.  How  deep  a  meaning  Schopen- 
hauer had  once  possessed  for  him  may  be  judged 
from  the  following  extracts.  The  first  is  from  a 
letter  written  in  1867  to  his  friend  the  Baron  von 
Gersdorff  on  the  occasion  of  the  death  of  von  Gers- 
dorff's  brother: 

"  Perhaps  this  death  is  the  greatest  grief  that 
could  have  come  to  you.  And  now,  dear  friend, 
you  have  experienced  for  yourself  —  I  gather  from 
the  tenor  of  your  letter  —  why  our  Schopenhauer 
esteems  pain  and  trouble  a  great  gift  of  fate, 
the  devrepos  wXovs  to  the  resigning  of  the  will. 
You  too  have  felt  and  lived  through  the  enlight- 
ening, deeply  quieting  and  settling  power  of 
pain.  It  is  a  time  in  which  you  can  yourself  try 
out  the  teaching  of  Schopenhauer.  If  the  fourth 
book  of  his  masterpiece  now  make  on  you  an  ugly 
disturbing  downweighing  impression,  if  it  have  not 
the  power  to  uplift  you,  to  carry  you  through  outer 
violent  grief  to  that  chastened  yet  serene  mood  that 
comes  over  us  as  we  listen  to  noble  music,  to  that 
mood  in  which  one  feels  the  earthy  shell  to  have 
dropped  from  one,  —  then  I  too  will  have  no  more 
of  this  philosophy.  Only  the  deeply  suffering  can 
and  may  speak  the  final  word  on  such  matters.  The 
rest  of  us  standing  in  the  current  of  things,  only 

189 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

longing  for  that  denial  of  the  will  as  for  the  blessed 
isles,  can  not  judge  whether  the  solace  of  such  phi- 
losophy is  adequate  to  times  of  deep  sorrow."  ^ 

And  some  three  years  later,  Nietzsche  invalided 
home  from  the  hospital  corps  of  the  Prussian  army 
writes  to  this  same  friend  at  the  front:  "  This 
morning  brought  me  the  happiest  surprise  and  a 
relief  from  much  inquietude  and  anxiety  —  your 
letter.  .  .  .  Everything  that  you  write  affects  me 
deeply,  above  all  the  sincere  earnest  tone  with 
which  you  speak  of  this  test  by  fire  of  our  common 
philosophy  of  life.  I  too  have  been  through  a  like 
experience,  for  me  too  these  months  have  proved 
a  time  in  which  my  beliefs  have  shown  themselves 
deep-rooted.  One  can  die  with  themj  that  means 
much  more  than  saying,  one  can  live  by  them."  ^ 

One  may  die  by  the  light  of  Schopenhauerian 
principles!  To  die  by  them  —  the  taunt  comes 
from  an  older  Nietzsche  —  is  all  that  one  can  do 
with  them.  But  by  this  later  time,  dying,  voluntary 
dying,  dying  with  the  breath  still  left  in  the  body  — 
all  this  has  lost  its  charm  for  Nietzsche.  He  is  now 
all  for  living 3  for  more  than  living,  for  fightings 
for  conquering^  for,  if  need  be,  killing. 

"  One  who  like  me,"  he  writes  in  these  later  days, 

^  Gesammelte   Briefe,  p.  6 1. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  1 70. 

190 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

"  has  long  busied  himself  with  curious  interest  in 
thinking  out  pessimism  to  its  bitter  end  .  .  .  has 
probably  in  this  very  pursuit  —  without  precisely 
having  willed  it  —  turned  his  eyes  toward  the  op- 
posite ideal:  toward  the  ideal  of  the  most  domineer- 
ing, the  most  living,  the  most  aggressive  of  men, 
toward  him  who  has  not  merely  reconciled  and  ad- 
justed himself  to  things  as  they  are  and  have  beenj 
but  who  wants  more  of  them,  just  as  they  are  and 
have  been  —  more  in  all  eternity,  crying  insatiably 
da  cafo  not  to  his  own  life  only,  but  to  the  whole 
scene  and  all  the  play." 

The  passage  is  not  without  a  hint  of  Nietzsche's 
personal  psychology.  No  doubt  he  loved  contrast 
for  the  sake  of  contrast  5  no  doubt  he  loved  drama  — 
particularly  the  dramatic  conflict  of  ideas  —  for  the 
play's  sakej  no  doubt  he  loved  paradox  not  a  little 
for  its  noise.  Yet  it  is  not  hard  for  the  student  to 
make  out  motives  deeper  than  the  personal,  and 
more  general,  that  impelled  Nietzsche  to  turn  his 
eyes  from  the  ethics  of  self -sacrifice  to  the  opposite 
ideal,  to  the  ideal  of  "  the  most  living,  the  most 
aggressive  of  men,"  to  the  ideal  of  the  "  Caesarian 
Conqueror." 

No  understanding  of  these  motives  can  leave  out 
of  account  the  great  scientific  idea  that  had  made  its 

191 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

appearance  in  the  nineteenth  century  —  the  idea  of 
organic  evolution.  It  is  difficult  to  overestimate 
the  suggestion  that  would  lie  in  such  an  idea  for  one 
imbued  with  the  thought  of  Schopenhauer.  In  its 
Darwinian  form,  the  essential  mechanism  of  evolu- 
tion is  seen  to  be  a  struggle,  a  war  between  race  and 
race,  between  individual  and  individual.  That  such 
warfare  is  the  necessary  expression  of  the  will  to 
live,  the  most  universal  principle  of  that  troubled 
phenomenon  we  call  nature,  Schopenhauer  had  in- 
deed grasped,  had  insisted  upon,  had  made  the 
cornerstone  of  his  theory  of  life.  But  then  Scho- 
penhauer had  dwelt  with  equal  insistence  on  the 
uselessness,  the  irrationality  of  the  struggle.  It  was 
all  cruel,  then,  nowhere  benign,  because  nowhere 
directed  toward  an  end.  But  now  a  purpose  in  the 
struggle  is  just  what  the  evolutionary  hypothesis 
seems  to  suggest.  What  if  life's  pitiless  cruelty  were 
justified  as  the  indispensable  means  to  a  supreme 
end  —  the  end  namely  of  producing  a  being  higher 
than  any  of  those  that  take  part  in  it?  By  the  selec- 
tion of  the  fittest,  would  not  this  warfare  result  in 
the  production  of  the  superior?  And  if  the  superior 
could  be  produced  only  at  the  cost  of  the  inferior, 
is  there  not  in  this  sacrifice  something  more  than 
wanton  and  irrational  cruelty? 

It  is  little  wonder  that  one  already  impressed 

192 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

with  the  "  self-contradiction  "  involved  in  a  will  not 
to  live  should  seize  upon  this  suggestion.  "  I  bring 
you  a  goal,"  cries  Zarathustra.  And  this  goal  he 
calls  the  "  Uebermensch." 

"  I  preach  to  you  the  Superman.  Man  is  some- 
thing to  be  overcome.  What  have  you  done  to 
overcome  him? 

"  All  things  before  you  have  produced  something 
beyond  themselves,  and  would  you  be  the  ebb  of 
this  great  flood?  Would  you  rather  go  back  to  the 
animal  than  overcome  man? 

"  What  is  the  ape  to  man?  A  jest  or  a  bitter 
shame.  And  just  that  shall  man  be  to  the  Super- 
man, a  jest  or  a  bitter  shame. 

"  You  have  traveled  the  way  from  worm  to  man, 
and  much  in  you  is  still  worm.    .    .    . 

"  Lo,  I  preach  to  you  the  Superman. 

"  The  Superman  is  the  meaning  of  the  earth." 

To  produce  the  higher  race!  that  is  "  the  meaning 
of  the  earth,"  the  meaning  that  Schopenhauer  had 
missed,  that  only  one  coming  after  Darwin  could 
have  seized  J  a  meaning  that  does  not  mask  the  cru- 
elty of  life,  yet  takes  from  it  its  tragedy  —  the 
tragedy  of  senseless  casual  pain. 

But  now  that  we  have  found  the  goal,  we  may 
also  define  the  worth  of  life  and  its  duties.     In 

193 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

deducing  these  we  meet  the  most  astonishing  "  Um- 
werthung  aller  Werthe,"  the  complete  inversion  of 
those  notions  of  worth  which  we  dwellers  in  Chris- 
tendom have  inherited.  "  I  sit,"  says  Zarathustra, 
"  with  old  shattered  tables  of  the  law  around  me  — 
and  with  new  tables,  too,  half  made  out."  We  ap- 
proach an  understanding  of  Nietzsche's  meaning 
when  he  wrote  that  God  and  man  dies  of  pity.  For 
if  with  him  we  make  whatever  promotes  progress 
toward  the  superman  our  good,  whatever  retards 
it  our  evil,  then  must  it  not  be  that  a  pity  which 
spares  the  weak  for  pity's  sake  is  the  very  vice,  the 
moral  disease,  which  makes  for  decadence?  Is  not 
pity  the  anodyne  of  those  who  despair  of  life,  and 
is  not  hope  in  the  future  necessarily  cruel? 

Before  we  who  are  of  necessity  touched  with 
modernity  react  against  a  doctrine  so  little  in  accord 
with  our  profession  of  self-sacrifice,  it  would  be 
well  to  ask  ourselves  how  seriously  we  take  this  our 
profession.  Is  the  quality  of  mercy  indeed  never 
strained  for  us?  For  example,  are  we  citizens  of  a 
young  and  prosperous  country  eager  to  throw  open 
its  doors  to  the  unhappy  dregs  of  outworn  lands  and 
exhausted  civilizations?  For  this  would  be  the  char- 
itable thing  to  do.  How  many  are  prepared  to  en- 
courage the  mentally  unsound  or  physically  diseased 


194 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

to  propagate?  Yet  pity  must  deny  itself  something 
if  it  would  condemn  misfortune  to  wed  loneliness. 

To  be  sure  one  expects  at  this  point  to  hear  of 
"  the  deeper  pity  "j  to  be  told  that  such  deeper  pity 
must  let  some  perish  in  their  misery  that  more  may 
not  be  made  wretched.  Even  so,  we  have  passed 
from  the  doctrine  of  the  supremacy  of  charity  to 
the  theory  of  "  the  greatest  happiness  to  the  greatest 
number."  Already  we  must  occasionally  cry  with 
Nietzsche,  "  Be  hard !  "  and  must  at  moments  under- 
stand his  phrase,  "  The  will  not-to-help  may  be 
higher  than  the  sympathy  that  springs  to  aid." 

And  we  might  carry  our  criticism  of  sympathy 
a  step  further.  What  sanction  has  the  formula  "  the 
greatest  happiness  to  the  greatest  number  "  ?  Obvi- 
ously, the  sanction  of  the  approval  of  the  greatest 
number  j  it  is  the  complete  expression  of  the  egoism 
of  the  mob.  But  egoism  for  egoism,  is  there  any- 
thing to  recommend  the  ideal  of  the  mob  as  against 
that  of  the  exceptional  being?  Surely,  if  we  make 
progress  our  guide,  those  who  have  done  the  most 
to  bring  about  modern  conditions  are  just  those 
whom  the  mob  has  condemned  and  suppressed  as 
working  against  its  welfare.  Socrates  was  poisoned, 
Jesus  crucified,  Caesar  assassinated,  Bruno  burned. 
Napoleon  isolated,  for  their  crimes.  It  makes  little 
difference  whether  the  crime  was  against  the  state, 

195 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

the  priestly  tradition,  the  republic,  the  church,  the 
nations  5  the  power  to  punish  in  each  case  came  from 
the  masses.  Each  of  these  conquerors  was  and  had 
to  be  a  pitiless  egoist,  hesitating  not  at  all  to  over- 
turn the  world  of  his  day  for  the  sake  of  his  own 
ideal.  Looking  back  on  these  historic  figures,  one  is 
tempted  to  say  that  the  glory  of  the  world  abides 
in  its  criminals,  those  lonely  men,  those  egoists. 

If  I  have  included  the  gentle  figure  of  Jesus  in 
a  list  of  the  conquerors,  it  is  not  because  Nietzsche 
would  regard  him  as  one  who  had  made  for  the 
world's  progress,  however  much  he  may  have  con- 
tributed to  its  history.  Nietzsche  would,  however, 
include  the  founder  of  the  gospel  of  love  among 
the  master  egoists.  Of  course,  modernity  will  cry 
paradox!  "Granted,"  it  will  say,  "granted  he 
brought  a  sword  into  the  world,  was  it  not  an  enor- 
mous pity  for  the  humanity  that  was  to  be  that 
moved  him  to  destroy  the  world  that  was,  and  with 
it,  himself?  " 

Nietzsche's  handling  of  this  par,adox  is  one  of 
the  significant  movements  of  his  thought.  To 
understand  it  we  must  go  back  a  little.  It  is  not 
the  question  of  the  personality  of  Jesus,  of  the 
motives  that  were  clearly  present  to  his  own  con- 
sciousness that  Nietzsche  would  discuss.  In  gen- 
eral, he  is  completely  indifferent  to  the  kind  of 

196 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

evidence  furnished  by  self -analysis  respecting  the 
motives  of  conduct  and  the  ground  of  opinion. 
Even  those  whose  powers  of  analysis  might  be  sup- 
posed to  give  them  a  right  to  speak  —  the  great 
philosophers  and  lovers  of  truth  —  are  to  Nietzsche 
deceivers  or  self-deceived.  "  What  tempts  me  to 
look  upon  all  philosophers  half  with  mistrust,  half 
with  amusement  is  not  that  one  discovers  again  and 
again  what  innocents  they  are,  how  often  and  how 
easily  mistaken  and  misled,  not,  in  a  word,  their 
prattle  and  childishness.  It  is  rather  that,  in  spite 
of  the  great  and  virtuous  noise  made  by  the  whole 
company  the  moment  the  question  of  truth  is  even 
remotely  touched  on,  they  do  not  deal  ingenuously 
with  us.  They  all  pose  as  believing  that  they  have 
arrived  at  their  own  opinions  by  the  self -develop- 
ment of  a  cool  pure  and  divinely  impassible  dialectic 
(in  contrast  with  the  mystics  of  all  shades,  who, 
honest  fools,  will  speak  of  Inspiration).  At  bottom, 
however,  it  is  some  idea  loved  at  first  sight,  most 
frequently  some  heart's  desire  made  abstract  and 
well  refined  that  they  defend  with  reasons  found 
for  the  purpose.  Advocates  denying  the  name,  cun- 
ning special  pleaders  for  their  prejudices,  they  chris- 
ten these  The  TruthJ*^ 

If  then  the  lover  of  truth  cannot  tell  the  truth 
about  himself,  if  the  cool  thinker  is  unable  to  reveal 

197 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

the  grounds  of  his  thought,  how  much  less  can  the 
man  of  heart  tell  what  is  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart, 
the  man  of  passion  tell  where  his  deepest  passion 
lies?  It  remains  for  Nietzsche  to  make  good  these 
short-comings. 

And  Nietzsche  makes  them  good  in  a  way  that 
lacks  neither  simplicity  nor  decision.  He  lays  it 
down  that  there  is  one  motive  to  which  all  others 
reduce,  and  to  which  everything  that  lives  instinc- 
tively reacts.  This  motive  is  not  the  mere  desire 
to  preserve  oneself,  the  desire  that  many  have  sup- 
posed sufficient  to  explain  even  the  phenomenon  of 
evolution.  It  goes  beyond  self-defense  to  strive 
after  the  maximum  of  aggression.  Nietzsche  calls 
it  "  der  Wille  zur  Macht  "  — ^the  Lust  of  Power.  It 
is  this  that  makes  the  world  dance,  that  makes  the 
brute  prepare  the  way  for  man,  that  drives  man 
to  produce  the  superman.  It  is  consequently  this 
that  compels  the  thinker  to  his  thought,  the  meek 
to  his  resignation,  the  crucified  to  his  cross. 

^'  I  am  not  of  those  of  whom  one  asks  '  why?  ' " 
Nietzsche  has  once  written.  If  you  cannot  accept 
his  assurance  that  the  deepest  spring  of  conduct  is 
the  will  to  conquer,  then  accept  the  contrary  doc- 
trine: Nietzsche  is  prepared  to  trust  his  insight  that 
you  do  this  because  the  contrary  doctrine  is  just  the 
one  you  need  to  work  out  your  own  scheme  of  con- 

198 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

quest,  —  as  a  wolf  may  on  occasion  sincerely  prefer 
the  pelt  of  a  lamb  to  his  own  natural  coat. 

It  is  to  the  lust  of  power  in  men's  hearts  that  the 
gospel  of  the  crucified  one  appeals!  The  paradox 
is  perhaps  most  completely  worked  out  in  Nietz- 
sche's "  Genealogie  der  Moral."  Here  history  is 
made  to  reveal  a  long  conflict  between  two  contra- 
dictory estimates  of  worth.  For  the  one  standard  a 
contrast  exists  between  high  morals  and  lowj  for  the 
other,  between  holiness  and  sin.  The  code  of 
ethics  based  on  the  first  of  these  contrasts  embodies, 
as  the  etymology  of  its  terms  indicates,  the  aristo- 
cratic conception  of  worth.  "  High  morals  "  are 
simply  the  manners  of  the  upper,  the  ruling  class  j 
"  low  morals,"  the  habits  of  the  underlings.  This 
standard  of  valuation  is  accepted  by  the  high  and 
low  alike  of  a  race  in  its  youth  and  strength.  The 
second  standard  defining  the  opposition  between 
good  and  evil  is  an  invention  of  the  miserable  and  op- 
pressed 5  it  is  their  reaction  against  their  conquerors, 
the  expression  of  their  resentment.  It  can  only  be- 
come dominant  in  decadent  races  j  its  triumph  in 
Christianity  is  evidence  that  the  modern  world  has 
sunk  to  the  ideals  of  the  lowly  —  that  is  to  say,  of 
the  low. 

If  we  place  these  two  codes  side  by  side,  we  real- 
ize how  completely  the  acceptance  of  either  demands 

199 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

the  "  Umwerthung  aller  Werthe "  acknowledged 
by  the  other.  The  highest  worth  in  the  aristocratic 
morality  is  the  pride  of  strength  j  the  great  wicked- 
ness to  the  lowly  moralist  is  just  this  same  pride  o£ 
strength.  The  great  virtue  of  the  slave-morality 
is  humility  J  to  the  aristocratic  taste  this  humility  is 
abject.  Of  the  history  of  the  warfare  between  the 
two,  Nietzsche  gives  a  sufficiently  dramatic  account. 
Characteristic  is  his  picture  of  the  triumph  of  the 
slaves: 

"All  that  has  been  accomplished  on  the  earth 
against  the  higher  orders  is  as  nothing  compared 
with  what  the  Jews  have  done:  the  Jews,  that  priest- 
led  people  that  finally  contrived  to  have  satisfaction 
of  its  enemies  by  a  complete  upsetting  of  all  their 
ethical  standards,  in  other  words,  by  an  act  of  intel- 
lectual revenge.  It  was  the  Jews  who  with  inexor- 
able logic  dared  to  deny  the  aristocratic  equation 
(good  =  lofty  =  powerful  =  beautiful  =  f  ortu- 
nate  =  god-favored)  and  who  with  bottomless 
hatred  —  the  hatred  born  of  impotence  —  set  their 
teeth  in  a  formula:  to  wit,  '  only  the  wretched  are 
the  good  J  only  the  poor,  the  weak,  the  lowly  are 
the  good  5  the  suffering,  the  sick,  the  unlovely  are 
indeed  the  only  servants  of  God  and  the  only  ones 
blessed  of  God  —  while  you,  O  ye  high  and  mighty, 
you  are  in  all  eternity  the  men  of  sin,  of  violence, 

200 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

of  lust,  the  insatiable,  the  Godless,  and  you  shall  be 
in  all  eternity  the  unblessed,  the  accursed,  the 
damned!  '  .  .  .  With  the  Jews  begins  the  slave- 
morality,  that  morality  which  has  a  struggle  of  two 
thousand  years  behind  it,  one  which  we  fail  to  note 
to-day,  just  because  —  it  is  victorious." 

The  master  is  made  to  accept  the  slave-morality, 
the  tyrant  is  made  afraid!  Our  English  poet 
Browning  has  given  a  picture  of  this  moment  in 
history  which  surpasses  even  Nietzsche's  in  vividness. 
The  man-forsaken,  cowering  yonder  in  his  self- 
less humility  —  tempts  the  tyrant  to  wring  from  him 
one  gesture  of  rebellion,  one  word  that  suggests 
pride  of  self.  In  vain!  The  slave's  arm  of  defense 
is  just  non-resistance,  just  a  mimicry  of  non-entity. 

When  sudden  .  .  .  how  think  ye  the  end? 

Did  I  say  "  without  friend  "  ? 

Say  rather,  from  marge  to  blue  marge 

The  whole  sky  grew  his  targe 

With  the  sun's  self  for  visible  boss, 

While  an  Arm  ran  across 

Which   the  earth  heaved  beneath  like  a  breast 

Where  the  wretch  was  safe  prest! 

Do  you  see?     Just  my  vengeance  complete. 

The  man  sprang  to  his  feet, 

Stood  erect,  caught  at  God's  skirts,  and  prayed! 

—  So,  /  was  afraid! 


201 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

But  the  psychology  of  this  fear  of  the  Lord  that 
is  the  beginning  of  decadence?  How  is  the  tyrant 
to  be  made  to  accept  the  "  Sklavenmoral,"  to  re- 
spect, even  to  imitate  humility  and  to  call  it  holy? 
Well,  the  slave  has  on  his  side  two  things  that  make 
for  success:  superior  numbers  and  superior  cunning. 
For  "  only  those  who  have  need  of  cunning," 
Nietzsche  writes,  "  acquire  it."  And  the  strong  has 
one  vulnerable  point  —  his  superstition.  It  is  this 
point  that  the  instinct  of  slave-hatred  has  found  j 
with  cunning  and  with  numbers  it  has  managed  to 
inculcate  a  belief  in  the  God  of  Pity,  to  overthrow 
the  aristocratic  appreciation  of  high  and  low,  to  sub- 
stitute for  it  a  morality  of  the  miserable  that  sets 
up  the  distinction  between  holiness  and  sin.  It  is 
the  denial  of  the  will  to  conquer  implied  by  such  a 
standard  of  conduct  that  makes  modernity  decadent, 
that  unfits  it  to  produce  the  superman.  No  wonder 
Nietzsche  should  have  claimed  the  gratitude  of 
higher  men  for  his  glad  tidings,  the  God  of  Pity  is 
dead! 

In  passing  beyond  the  morality  of  decadence, 
every  suggestion  of  a  plan  of  life  that  might  be  sub- 
stituted for  it,  must  come  from  the  past:  the  young 
races  not  yet  fallen  into  decrepitude  give  us  our 
models  of  the  heroic.    We  cannot  however  turn  the 

202 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

clock  back,  we  cannot  repeat  their  acts  today  without 
becoming  such  anachronisms  as  a  Cervantes  could 
make  laughter  of.  It  may  be  however  that  our  own 
institutions,  foremost  of  which  is  the  well-organized 
state,  leave  ample  room  for  the  heroism  that  pre- 
pares the  way  for  the  superman. 

"Where  the  state  ends  —  there  begins  the  man 
who  is  not  superfluous.    .    .    . 

"Where  the  state  ends  —  Look,  my  brothers! 
Do  you  not  see  the  rainbow  and  the  bridges  that 
lead  to  the  Superman?  ^' 

Where  the  state  ends!  only  there  does  Nietzsche's 
interest  begin.  But  would  he  have  the  state  end 
much  nearer  its  beginning  j  yes,  before  its  beginning  5 
would  he  return  to  the  condition  that  has  no  social, 
no  political  organization?  Perhaps  —  it  is  hard  to 
say  3  but  it  is  not  necessary  that  one  advocate  anarchy 
in  order  that  one  should  prepare  a  field  for  that 
great  struggle  of  man  against  man  out  of  which 
are  to  emerge  the  victors,  the  fathers  of  the  super- 
man. 

Huxley  suggests  another  solution.  For  him  too 
where  the  state  ends  a  new  struggle  begins.  The 
state  assures  security  of  life,  and  of  this  security  is 
born  a  new  desire  —  the  aviditas  vitaSy  let  us  say 
the  desire  for  the  maximum  of  life  measured  in 
terms  of  power  and  enjoyment.    With  this  struggle 

203 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

born  of  the  aviditas  vitae^  begins  Nietzsche's  theory 
of  ethical  values.  Here  indeed  there  can  be  no 
question  of  unselfishness,  of  self-sacrifice  for 
another.  Within  this  domain  the  meaning  of  good 
and  bad  stands  out  with  perfect  clearness. 

"  What  is  good?  "  Nietzsche  asks.  "  All  that 
heightens  in  man  the  feeling  of  power,  the  desire 
for  power,  power  itself. 

"  What  is  bad?     All  that  comes  from  weakness. 

"  What  is  happiness?  The  feeling  that  our 
strength  grows,  that  an  obstacle  is  overcome. 

"  Not  contentment,  but  more  power  j  not  universal 
peace,  but  war  3  not  virtue,  but  forcefulness. 

"The  weak  and  ineffective  must  go  under  j  first 
principle  of  our  love  of  humanity.  And  one  should 
even  lend  one's  hand  to  this  end. 

"  What  is  more  harmful  than  any  vice?  Pity  for 
the  condition  of  the  ineffectives  and  weak  —  Chris- 
tianity." 

Yet  one  must  not  imagine  that  this  pitiless  strug- 
gle of  which  is  to  be  born  the  man  of  tomorrow  is 
gloomy  and  hate-inspired.  On  the  contrary  it  is 
joyous,  and  gives  scope  for  a  much  nobler  love  than 
that  which  is  pitiful.  I  know  of  no  institution  of 
modern  life  that  so  nearly  realizes  Nietzsche's  idea 
of  this  struggle  together  with  the  virtues  it  engen- 
ders, as  does  that  of  sport  among  gentlemen.    Here 

204 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

one  plays  to  win,  and  to  spare  one's  opponent  or  to 
be  spared  by  him  merely  mars  sport.  Yet  one  does 
not  hate  one's  opponent,  but  loves  him  for  his  good 
sportsmanship.  Only,  this  love,  this  friendship 
among  strong  men  must  not  weaken  the  arm,  must 
not  soften  the  willj  if  it  do,  it  destroys  itself  and  is 
returned  with  contempt.  We  do  not  hate  men  be- 
cause we  fear  them,  Nietzsche  makes  it  out,  but  just 
because  we  do  not  fear  them.  The  hatred  that 
leads  one  to  shun  one's  kind  is  born  of  disdain.  Life 
that  has  for  its  joy  the  joy  of  battle,  for  its  reward 
the  sense  of  strength  that  grows  with  its  exercise, 
for  its  delight  the  love  of  brother  warriors,  a  brother 
that  can  give  and  take  death  generously!  It  is  only 
the  many  too  many,  weakly  looking  on  and  trem- 
bling before  the  spectacle  of  a  strength  they  fear 
and  hate,  that  have  no  joy  of  life  and  cry,  "  Let 
there  be  peace." 

I  would  willingly  describe  this  Homeric  scene 
more  in  detail,  consider  the  part  that  certain  heroes, 
the  warrior,  the  artist,  the  philosopher,  play  in  it. 
But  we  must  sweep  on  to  larger  issues,  for  there  is  a 
question  that  must  have  occurred  to  everyone  as  our 
description  of  the  Nietzschian  battle  has  advanced. 
It  is  the  old  question,  Cui  bono!  We  fight,  sup- 
pose we  win?      Little  Peterkin,   who  was  surely 

205 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

brought  up  on  Schopenhauer,  is  there  to  ask,  What 
good  has  come  of  it?  A  little  power  more  or  less, 
what  does  it  matter?  Our  brief  hour  is  still  a  brief 
hour,  our  atomic  selves  cannot  greatly  swell,  what 
after  all  is  the  use  of  fighting  when  we  cannot  befool 
ourselves  as  to  the  nature  of  the  spoils? 

For  answer,  we  might  point  once  more  to  the  Su- 
perman. For  him  we  kill  pity  in  our  hearts  j  for 
him,  and  not  for  spoils,  is  the  battle  fought.  Surely 
the  conqueror  is  conquered  and  his  winnings  cannot 
warm  a  grave.  It  is  for  the  sake  of  them  that  come 
after  that  the  costly  struggle  is  maintained.  Every 
fighter  should  know  this  5  it  should  fire  his  heart  and 
give  him  courage  to  be  hard.  "  Higher  than  the 
love  of  thy  nearest  stands  the  love  of  those  most 
remote  from  thee,  thine  offspring,  the  far  future 
man.  Higher  than  the  love  of  thy  kind  is  for  me 
the  love  of  a  Shadow.  This  Shadow  that  runs  be- 
for  thee  is  more  beautiful  than  thouj  why  dost  thou 
not  give  him  thy  flesh  and  thy  bones?  " 

But  this  Superman?  Can  things  stop  with  him? 
Is  he  really  a  goal?  Or  only  a  transition,  a  bridge 
to  the  super-superman?  Has  evolution  really 
changed  the  situation  that  Schopenhauer  depicts?  In 
the  endless  flux  can  one  find  a  purpose  that  abides? 

This  phrase  —  the  endless  flux  —  brings  us  to 
one  of  the  strangest  phases  of  Nietzsche's  doctrine. 

206 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

One  who,  with  Schopenhauer,  has  deeply  questioned 
the  evidence  of  purpose,  the  harmony  of  purposes 
in  this  world  of  ours,  one  who  has  groped  in  the 
night  of  things  for  that  which  might  inspire  one's 
will  to  live  has  perhaps  been  caught  by  the  great 
idea  of  evolution,  has  perhaps  cried  with  Nietzsche, 
"  I  will  live  and  struggle  for  to-morrow."  Then, 
to  such  an  one,  the  old  questioning  spirit  returns  as 
it  is  bound  to  return  to  men  who  think.  The  mor- 
row of  to-morrow  looms  up  before  him;  the  eternal 
flux  of  to-morrows  stretches  itself  out  and  loses  itself 
in  a  vague  "  Whither?  " 

If  now  this  one  turn  to  Nietzsche  for  an  answer, 
he  receives  one  certainly;  but,  surely,  a  mocking  one! 

"  I  preach,"  cries  Nietzsche,  "  the  Wiederkunft." 

One  day  Zarathustra  and  his  Dwarf  come  to  a 
certain  portal. 

"Look  on  this  portal.  Dwarf.  It  has  two  faces; 
two  ways  come  together  here  which  no  man  has 
traveled  to  the  end. 

"  This  long  road  back  of  us  measures  an  eternity. 
And  that  long  road  before  us  —  that  is  another 
eternity. 

"  They  are  opposed,  these  two  ways;  they  meet 
each  other  head-on  and  it  is  here  at  this  portal  that 
they  come  together.  The  name  of  this  portal  is 
written  over  it;  it  is  the  ^  NowJ* 

207 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

"  But  if  one  were  to  follow  one  of  these  roads 
further,  and  always  further,  —  thinkest  thou. 
Dwarf,  they  would  always  be  opposed? 

"  Look  upon  this  ^  Now  *  /  From  this  portal 
there  runs  a  long  way  back;  behind  us  lies  an  eternity. 

"  Must  not  all  things  that  can  come  to  pass  already 
have  passed  along  this  road?  Must  not  everything 
that  can  happen  already  have  happened  and  run  its 
course? 

"  And  if  all  things  already  have  come  to  pass, 
what  thinkest  thou,  Dwarf,  of  this  ^  Now  ^P  Must 
not  this  portal  have  been  here  before?  And  are 
not  all  things  in  such  wise  fast  knotted  together  that 
this  ^  Now  ^  drags  with  it  all  things  to  come?  That, 
consequently,  it  drags  itself  back  again? 

"  For  what  of  all  things  can  come  to  pass,  must 
they  not  again  pass  along  this  endless  road  that 
stretches  before  us? 

"  And  this  slow  spider  crawling  in  the  moon- 
light j  aye,  and  this  moonlight,  and  I  and  thou  in 
the  portal  whispering  together,  whispering  of 
eternal  things,  must  we  not  all  of  us  have  been 
before? 

"  And  must  we  not  return  again  and  again  along 
that  long  road  —  must  we  not  eternally  return? 

"  So   spake   he,   and  always  lower   and   lower  j 


208 


FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

for  he  was  afraid  of  his  thoughts  —  and  after- 
thoughts! " 

Surely  Nietzsche  is  mocking  us  with  his  Wieder- 
kunf t,  —  with  his  doctrine  of  the  eternal  returning 
of  things!  What!  he  teaches  that  the  struggle  has 
a  goal,  and  that  goal  is  just —  tomorrow?  Then, 
when  bewildered  by  the  vision  of  the  infinite  stretch 
of  tomorrows  we  turn  to  him  for  explanation,  he 
tells  us  that  the  stream  is  not  even  infinite  but 
like  ancient  Ocean  "  flows  in  upon  itself." 

"  Tied  to  the  wheel  of  things,"  India  said  we 
were,  "  therefore,  let  us  give  up." 

"  Tied  to  the  wheel  of  things,"  Nietzsche  agrees 
we  are,  "  therefore,  let  us  keep  on." 

"  Courage  is  the  best  of  them  that  kill.  Courage 
kills  even  pity.  Now,  pity  is  the  deep  abyss:  deep 
as  one  sees  into  life,  just  so  deep  does  one  see  into 
pain. 

"  But  courage  is  the  best  of  them  that  kill;  cour- 
age that  lays  hold  on  things  j  courage  puts  even 
Death  to  death,  for  it  says  to  life:  ^  War  das  das 
Leben?     Wohlan!     Noch  einmal !  '  " 

Noch  einmal !  To  make  one  ready  to  cry  da  cafo 
to  life,  that  is  the  test  of  a  philosophy!  Nietzsche's 
doctrine  of  the  Wiederkunft  has  no  scientific  im- 
portance, but  this  fact  is  itself  unimportant.     It 

209 


^^        FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

makes  little  difference  whether  the  River  Ocean  flows 
in  upon  itself,  or  flows  endlessly  on,  or  falls  at  last 
into  Hades.  The  important  thing  is  that  worth  and 
happiness  lie  in  playing  the  game  of  life  as  experi- 
ence reveals  it  to  us,  no  matter  what  that  game 
may  be. 

"  Thy  will  be  my  will,  O  Nature,"  cried  the  Stoic 
Emperor.  Is  this  will  the  will  to  conquer,  is  it  the 
will  to  produce  the  higher  type,  is  it  the  will  to  flow, 
is  it  the  will  wheel-like  to  turn  in  saecula  saecu- 
lorum  —  the  word  of  life  is  "  That  also  will  I  "3  the 
word  of  sickness  and  death  is,  "  That  will  I  not." 

There  is  enough  of  the  dramatic  for  such  as  have 
a  taste  that  way  in  the  circumstance  that  just  this 
lonely,  pain-wracked,  finally  brain-sick  man  should 
have  begun  his  philosophy  with  the  phrase:  "  God 
is  dead  of  pity  for  men,"  and  should  have  concluded 
it  with  that  other:  "  War  das  das  Leben?  Wohlan! 
Noch  einmal!  " 


210 


VIII 


PRAGMATISM 


PRAGMATISM 

Nothing  could  be  easier,  you  would  say,  than  to 
distinguish  the  things  man  has  made  from  those  he 
has  merely  stumbled  upon  and  found.  The  suns 
and  their  satellites,  with  the  laws  of  their  turning  j 
the  earth,  with  its  seas  and  continents  and  the  ways 
of  its  winds  and  weather  —  surely  no  man  took 
thought  on  these  things  to  make  them.  Whereas, 
from  the  first  bit  of  flint  chipped  to  serve  a  human 
need  to  all  our  world  has  now  to  show  of  instru- 
ments of  power  and  works  of  art  we  have  a  record 
of  human  ideals  wrought  in  material,  while  man, 
surrounded  by  his  handiwork,  has  come  to  live  more 
and  more  under  laws  of  his  own  making. 

Aristotle  thought  the  difference  between  products 
of  nature  and  works  of  art  so  plain  that  he  need 
not  pause  to  explain  it.  The  years  that  have  passed 
since  then  have  developed  no  better  mind  than  Aris- 
totle's, no  keener  wit  than  Plato's,  but  they  have 
brought  us  a  wealth  of  experience  —  of  an  experi- 
ence at  once  enlightening  and  disillusioning,  until 

Jetzt  sind  wir  so  klug  und  witzig 
Es  verblutet  uns  das  Herz. 

213 


PRAGMATISM 

We  are  no  longer  sure  of  very  much,  and  among 
the  things  we  are  most  doubtful  about  is  just  this 
distinction  between  what  man  has  made  and  what 
he  has  found.  To  prove  this,  no  one  need  go  fur- 
ther afield  than  just  to  consider  himself.  Surely 
I  may  say  of  myself,  my  character,  my  private  life 
that  it  is  man-made,  for  am  not  I  the  man  that  made 
it?  It  expresses  all  my  ideals  so  far  as  I  could 
realize  them,  and  never  would  it  have  been  just 
what  it  is  had  I  not  moulded  it  that  way.  And  yet, 
who  among  us  has  not  sat  up  of  nights  with  that 
strange  being  he  calls  himself,  and  wondered  how- 
ever he  came  to  bring  so  uncompanionable  a  com- 
panion home  with  him  and  where  the  devil  he  found 
him?  Ernst  Mach  tells  an  amusing  anecdote  at  his 
own  expense.  One  day  he  was  mounting  the  steps 
of  a  bus  when  he  noticed  at  the  other  end  of  the 
aisle  a  man's  face  peering  into  his.  He  had  no  more 
than  asked  himself  "  Where  have  I  seen  that  de- 
generate looking  pedagogue  before?  "  —  when  he 
discovered  he  was  looking  into  a  mirror. 

And  who,  wearying  of  this  sorry  companion,  has 
not  tried  to  change  him  for  a  better,  only  to  find 
himself  after  a  longer  or  shorter  while  with  the 
same  old  fellow  at  his  elbow  —  a  trifle  more  set  in 
his  ways,  perhaps,  but  otherwise  little  altered?  Of 
the  sadder  sort  of  autobiographies  I  should  put  the 

214 


PRAGMATISM 

Journal  Intime  of  Henri-Frederic  Amiel  easily 
first.  Not  from  pain  or  poverty,  not  from  the  mal- 
ice of  other  men  nor  any  disgrace  of  outer  fortune 
did  he  suffer,  but  just  from  the  being  that  was  him- 
self. "  From  the  beginning,"  he  writes  in  1858,  "  I 
have  been  a  dreamer  fearing  to  act  —  in  love  with 
perfection  and  as  incapable  of  renouncing  her  de- 
mands as  of  meeting  them.  In  short,  a  mind  of 
wide  vision  and  a  character  of  no  strength;  curious 
to  feel  all  that  is  to  be  felt,  unfit  for  any  action." 
"  Here,"  comments  his  friend,  Edmond  Scherer, 
"  we  have  Amiel 's  cross.  He  wanted  —  he  wanted 
to  want  —  to  will,  and  will-power  was  wanting  in 
him.  He  cursed  the  inner  spell  that  was  on  him, 
but  he  could  not  shake  it  off.  After  each  attempt 
to  break  it  he  fell  back  into  himself  again,  more 
bewildered,  more  weary  and  bruised  than  ever.  In 
the  waging  of  these  combats  the  years  wore  on,  until 
the  moment  was  near  when  Amiel  would  have  to 
acknowledge  to  himself  that  the  circle  was  definitely 
closed  behind  him."  Would  you  say  that  Amiel 
had  made  his  destiny  or  found  it?  Would  you  say 
that  any  of  us  is  of  his  own  workmanship,  or  does 
our  life  slowly  unfold  itself  to  us  as  to  Oedipus  his 
fate? 

What  is  thus  suggested  by  self-examination  is 
confirmed  by  the  study  of  other  lives.    The  friend 

215 


PRAGMATISM 

whose  wayward  course  has  made  your  affection  anx- 
ious for  him  —  can  you,  with  the  best  will  in  the 
world,  change  him  from  himself?  Some,  out  of 
bitterness  of  their  experience,  have  said  it  would  be 
easier  to  repeal  the  law  of  gravitation  than  in  any 
way  to  alter  human  destiny.  Others  to  be  sure 
are  more  sanguine,  and  will  not  give  up  seeking  a 
way  so  long  as  there  is  a  will  to  save.  But  whether, 
even  when  they  appear  to  succeed,  it  is  not  rather 
their  patience  that  is  rewarded  by  being  allowed  to 
live  long  enough  to  witness  what  would  have  come 
about  without  any  of  their  doing,  or  whether  char- 
acter is  more  truly  a  thing  made  by  human  effort 
than  a  thing  found  and  unfolded  to  our  observation 
—  respecting  these  matters  there  is  divergence  of 
opinion. 

Now,  confidence  in  our  ability  to  tell  what  we 
have  made  from  what  we  have  found  once  shaken, 
there  is  no  saying  how  far  our  questioning  mind  may 
carry  us.  No  saying,  I  mean,  in  the  case  of  any 
individual  man  —  for  it  is  easy  enough  to  tell  the 
general  history  of  this  doubt  and  uncertainty.  It 
reaches  all  the  way  from  those  who  think  that  back 
of  all  apparent  creating  by  finite  beings  there  is  a 
Nature  with  its  laws  that  was  never  made,  but  can 
only  little  by  little  be  made  out.  Let  us  call  those 
who  think  in  this  way  "  Realists."    Historic  uncer- 

216 


PRAGMATISM 

tainty  then  reaches  all  the  way  from  the  realists  to 
those  who  think  that  heaven,  the  earth,  and  all  that 
in  them  is,  have  no  reality  save  as  they  are  the 
thought  and  work  of  finite  minds.  We  will  call 
these  thinkers  "  Idealists."  From  realist  to  idealist 
and  back  again,  through  all  intermediate  phases,  the 
dialectic  of  history  swings  j  but  it  does  not  merely 
mark  time  therefore,  it  also  measures  progress.  It 
is  of  one  moment  —  I  think  a  rather  interesting 
moment  —  of  this  progress  that  I  would  speak  in 
due  order.  Let  this,  then,  be  my  prologue  —  and 
so  to  the  tale. 

In  1907,  William  James  wrote  of  the  philosophy 
to  which  he  had  devoted  the  last  ten  or  twelve  years : 
"  I  fully  expect  to  see  the  pragmatist  view,"  so  he 
called  this  philosophy,  "  run  through  the  classic 
stages  of  a  theory's  career.  First,  you  know,  a  new 
theory  is  attacked  as  absurd  3  then,  it  is  admitted  to 
be  true,  but  obvious  and  insignificant  j  finally,  it  is 
seen  to  be  so  important  that  its  adversaries  claim 
they  themselves  discovered  it.  Our  doctrine  of  truth 
is  at  present  in  the  first  of  these  three  stages,  with 
symptoms  of  the  second  stage  having  begun  in  cer- 
tain quarters." 

Looking  back  over  the  years  that  have  lapsed 
since  this  was  written,  I  cannot  say  that  James's 

217 


PRAGMATISM 

prophecy  as  to  the  future  of  pragmatism  has  been 
fulfilled  J  but  that  the  world,  at  least  the  world  in 
which  I  have  lived,  has  lost  its  first  sense  of  the  ab- 
surdity of  pragmatism  is  undoubtedly  true.  No  one 
was  more  bitten  than  I  with  this  first  feeling  of  the 
absurd,  unless  it  was  some  other  of  my  kind  among 
those  who  gathered  of  an  evening  in  1896  to  listen 
to  a  reading  of  James's  now  famous  little  essay  on 
"  The  Will  to  Believe  "  —  the  essay  which,  so  far 
as  James  was  concerned,  opened  the  campaign  for 
pragmatism.  James  had  written  the  paper  that 
winter  as  a  lecture  to  be  delivered  before  the  Phi- 
losophical Clubs  of  Yale  and  Brown  Universities, 
and  I  cannot  recall  what  the  occasion  was  that 
brought  a  small  number  of  us  graduate  students  at 
Harvard  together  to  hear  it  re-read  j  but  I  do  recall 
that  we  were  very  much  bewildered  and  not  a  little 
shocked  by  the  reading. 

Not  all,  I  dare  say,  who  afterwards  read  this 
"  Will  to  Believe  "  will  have  experienced  any  such 
shock  and  bewilderment,  nor  will  many  have  felt 
what  we  found  so  upsetting  in  a  bit  of  writing  that 
was,  as  writing,  certainly,  altogether  delightful. 
But  you  must  know  that  this  particular  gathering 
was  made  up  of  students  who  had  been  brought  up 
in  that  theory  of  truth  which  I  have  called  the  real- 
istic, and  their  habitual  attitude  toward  truth  was 

218 


PRAGMATISM 

such  that  they  held  their  truth  the  truer  the  more 
they  were  its  discoverers  and  the  less  they  had  had 
to  do  with  the  making  of  it. 

There  were,  to  begin  with,  the  laboratory  men. 
Now,  a  laboratory  is  a  school  of  the  most  rigid  dis- 
cipline —  a  discipline  whose  first  principle  is  "  keep 
yourself  out  of  your  experiment."  I  think  you  will 
understand  what  I  mean  by  this  when  I  say  that 
a  scrupulous  experimenter  about  to  take  conclusive 
readings  in  a  matter  that  promises  to  be  of  some 
value  to  science  will,  if  possible,  get  another  observer 
ignorant  of  their  import  to  take  these  readings  for 
him,  lest  something  of  his  own  excitement  and 
anxiety  corrupt  his  very  touch,  sight  and  hearing, 
and  warp  his  result  to  his  will.  And,  what  was  this 
James  was  defending  —  a  "  Will  to  Believe  "?  No 
wonder  some  wag  of  the  lot  dubbed  it  "  The  Will 
to  Make  Believe "  !  And  what  was  this  again 
James  was  saying  — "  For  purposes  of  discov- 
ery .  .  .  indifference  is  to  be  less  highly  recom- 
mended, and  science  would  be  far  less  advanced 
than  she  is  if  the  passionate  desires  of  individuals 
to  get  their  own  faiths  confirmed  had  been  kept  out 
of  the  game.  ...  On  the  other  hand,  if  you  want 
an  absolute  duffer  in  an  investigation,  you  must,  after 
all,  take  the  man  who  has  no  interest  v/hatever  in 
its  results:  he  is  the  warranted  incapable,  the  pos- 

219 


PRAGMATISM 

itive  fool."  Had  James  addressed  a  gathering  of 
the  Sons  of  St.  Patrick,  in  the  sense  of  demonstrating 
to  them  that  the  Pope  of  Rome  was  the  Beast  men- 
tioned in  Revelations,  he  might  have  called  forth  a 
noisier  response,  but  none  less  sympathetic  than  ours. 
One  who  would  invite  a  man  to  bring  his  enthusi- 
asms, his  likings  and  dislikings,  in  short,  any  will  of 
his  other  than  the  will  to  persevere,  into  a  laboratory 
with  him  would  naturally  not  forbid  him  to  keep 
all  this  equipment  by  him  in  whatever  pursuit  of 
truth  he  might  engage,  whether  of  history,  econom- 
ics, morals  or  religion.  And  just  as  James  shocked 
the  realist  spirit  of  that  little  Harvard  gathering  of 
a  score  of  years  ago,  so  have  his  writings  fallen  afoul 
of  realism  wherever  they  have  been  read  —  and 
perhaps  few  writers  on  philosophy  have  been  more 
widely  read  than  William  James.  This  is  to  have 
made  enemies  indeed,  for  the  genius  of  realism,  the 
spirit  of  the  seeker  who  would  find  what  he  might 
find  and  call  it  truth,  naked,  unclothed  upon  with 
garments  of  human  interpretation,  has  sometime 
breathed  in  every  science  and  every  art. 

Take  the  realistic  historian  now  —  but  you  will 
doubtless  know  this  character  better  if  I  show  him 
to  you,  and  the  effect  he  produces  upon  other  temper- 
aments, than  if  I  merely  describe  him  as  a  type. 

220 


PRAGMATISM 

Among  the  most  entertaining  of  the  reviews  that 
Anatole  France  contributed  to  "  Le  Temps,"  in  the 
late  Bo's  and  early  90's,  is  one  that  he  devotes  to  a 
work  "  tout  a  fait  solide  et  puissant  "  of  Louis  Bour- 
deau,  "  L'Histoire  et  les  Historiens,  essai  critique  " 
—  a  critical  essay  on  history  considered  as  an  ob- 
jective science  —  "  in  which,"  as  France  remarks, 
"  M.  Bourdeau  puts  works  on  history  in  a  class  with 
fables  and  Mother  Goose  tales. 

"  ^  History,'  says  M.  Bourdeau,  ^  is  not  and  can- 
not be  a  science.'  The  reasons  he  gives  for  this  have 
not  failed  to  make  an  impression  on  my  mind,  and 
perhaps  there  is  a  special  reason  why  they  should 
impress  me  —  the  sum  of  which  is  that  I  had  tried 
to  point  out  these  reasons  before  he  did.  I  had 
thrown  out  suggestions  of  them  flippantly  and  in  a 
spirit  of  badinage  ten  years  ago  in  a  little  book  of 
mine  called  the  '  Crime  of  Sylvestre  Bonnard.'  I 
set  no  store  by  them  then,  but,  now  that  I  see  they 
are  worth  something,  I  am  in  haste  to  claim  them. 

"  ^  In  the  first  place,'  I  said  in  this  little  book,  — 
*  In  the  first  place,  what  is  history?  History  is  the 
written  presentation  of  past  events.  But  what  is  an 
event?  Is  it  any  fact  whatever?  No,  sir.  It  is  a 
noteworthy  fact.  Now,  how  is  the  historian  to  judge 
whether  a  fact  is  noteworthy  or  not?  He  judges 
according  to  his  taste  and  caprice,  follows  his  own 

221 


PRAGMATISM 

idea,  in  short,  proceeds  after  the  manner  of  an  artist. 
For  facts  do  not  of  their  own  accord  divide  them- 
selves into  historical  facts  and  non-historical  facts. 
Again,  a  fact  is  something  extremely  complex.  Does 
the  historian  represent  facts  in  all  their  complexity? 
No,  that  is  impossible.  He  will  represent  them 
stripped  of  the  greater  part  of  their  detail,  conse- 
quently truncated,  mutilated,  different  from  what 
they  were.  As  to  the  interrelation  of  these  facts,  the 
less  said  of  that  the  better.  If  a  so-called  historic 
fact  is  brought  about  (which  is  possible)  by  one  or 
more  non-historic  facts  —  and  for  that  very  reason 
unknown  —  how  can  the  historian  establish  a  rela- 
tion between  these  facts?  ' 

"  These,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  are  the  fundamen- 
tal ideas  upon  which  M.  Louis  Bourdeau  rests  his 
right  to  refuse  to  history  any  scientific  value.  .  .  . 

"  Indulgent  minds  find  a  way  to  get  along  with 
the  treacheries  of  history.  This  muse  is  false,  they 
think,  but  she  no  longer  deceives  us  when  we  have 
found  out  that  she  is  deceiving  us.  Constant  doubt 
shall  be  our  kind  of  certitude,  they  say.  Prudently, 
we  will  go  our  way  from  error  to  error  toward  a 
relative  kind  of  truth,  for  even  a  lie  is  some  kind 
of  a  truth.    .    .    . 

"  But  as  for  M.  Bourdeau,  he  does  not  wish  to 
be  deceived  even  knowingly,  and  he  absolutely  re- 

222 


PRAGMATISM 

pudiates  history.  He  drives  her  from  his  door  as 
deceitful,  shameless,  dissolute,  having  sold  herself 
to  the  powerful,  a  courtesan  in  the  pay  of  kings,  an 
enemy  of  the  people,  wanton  and  false." 

So  far,  the  picture  of  non-objective  history  in  all 
its  ugliness  —  history  as  it  has  been  written  in  the 
past.  But  now  the  history  of  the  future,  objective 
history,  realistic  history  —  ah,  that  will  be  quite 
another  story.  It  is  Bourdeau  who  speaks:  "  The 
historians  of  the  future  will  have  for  their  first  task 
the  gathering  and  interpreting  of  statistical  data  con- 
cerning the  common  events  of  life.  The  activity  of 
thought  always  expresses  itself  in  acts,  and  the  only 
way  to  take  account  of  these  is,  after  having  classified 
them  under  definite  functions,  to  set  them  down  at 
the  moment  of  their  happening,  to  count  them  under 
given  conditions  of  population,  of  time  and  place, 
then  to  compare  these  results  whether  simultane- 
ous or  successive,  to  note  the  variations  of  the  func- 
tion and  to  make  the  inductions  that  they  warrant. 
Thus,  and  only  thus,  may  we  some  day  know  what 
the  multitudes  that  make  up  humanity  are  doing. 

"  This  is  the  way  we  must  write  history  from  now 
on,  not  only  in  the  young  countries  which,  like  Aus- 
tralia, Canada,  La  Plata,  are  founded  under  new 
conditions,  but  even  in  the  old  societies  of  Europe 
that,  like  the  others,  hope  to  work  out  for  them- 

223 


PRAGMATISM 

selves  an  ideal  order  of  labor,  of  peace  and  of  lib- 
erty. For  one  who  has  reached  our  point  of 
advancement,  any  other  way  of  studying  history  is 
inexact  and  childish.  A  reform  is  coming,  and  will 
either  be  made  by  the  historians  or  in  spite  of  them. 
The  age  of  literary  historiography  is  about  to  close  j 
that  of  scientific  history  about  to  open.  When  it 
shall  be  able  to  reconstruct  for  us  the  life  of  a  people 
in  the  way  we  have  indicated,  we  shall  see  that  no 
story  can  oflFer  so  much  of  interest,  of  instruction 
and  of  grandeur." 

I  do  not  know  that  every  one  is  bound  to  share 
Bourdeau's  enthusiasm  for  statistical  history.  Per- 
haps some  will  hope  with  France  that  they  may  not 
be  spared  to  read  history  written  in  this  way,  and 
will  solace  themselves  the  meanwhile  with  their 
Thucydides  and  Herodotus.  But  at  least,  all  will 
have  caught  the  martial  tread  of  realism  resounding 
through  these  passages. 

In  the  laboratory  sciences  the  objective  spirit  sits 
as  a  strong  man  in  his  castle,  impregnable,  unattack- 
able.  There  we  see  him  dreaming  dreams  of  con- 
quest, the  fair  domain  of  history,  in  which  we  may 
include  economics,  seems  ready  to  fall  to  his  bow 
and  spear  for  the  world's  endless  betterment.  And 
what  lies  beyond?     Lands  that  are  the  fairest,  rich- 

224 


PRAGMATISM 

est,  most  desired  of  allj  and  yet  which  will  take  all 
his  daring,  all  his  courage,  all  his  steadfastness  and 
an  undying  enthusiasm  to  make  his  own.  They  are 
the  lands  of  morals  and  religion. 

I  like  those  chapters  of  history  that  tell  how  the 
spirit  of  the  experimenter  sets  out  to  conquer  the 
realms  that  have  so  long  been  ruled  by  masters  with 
whom  he  can  have  no  sympathy  —  tradition,  coming 
out  of  the  vague  mists  of  the  pastj  superstition,  born 
of  human  ignorance  j  mysticism,  inarticulate,  ecstatic, 
offering  reasons  for  itself  that  are  reasons  only  to 
those  who  ask  for  none.  To  win  all  this  for  ob- 
jectivity, for  the  kingdom  of  the  kind  of  truth  that 
believes  only  because  the  experiment  says  so,  the 
experiment  that  any  unbeliever  may  repeat  for  him- 
self and  abide  by  the  result  —  this  is  surely  a  brave 
adventure,  and  whether  they  meet  victory  or  defeat 
one  cannot  refuse  one's  enthusiasm  to  those  who 
have  had  courage  to  make  it. 

Of  those  who  set  forth  in  this  way,  I  should  call 
David  Hume  the  father.  Would  you,  for  example, 
know  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong?  Then  turn 
not  to  inspired  writings,  but  travel  widely  through 
the  civilizations  of  diflFerent  countries  and  different 
times  and  seek  as  you  would  seek  any  other  historical 
fact,  first,  what  people  called  good  and  what  they 
called  bad.     Then,  if  underlying  the  vast  contra- 

225 


PRAGMATISM 

dictions  of  historic  precept  you  find  nevertheless  an 
agreement  in  the  purpose  these  precepts,  set  in  their 
native  settings,  served,  why,  then,  you  will  have  ar- 
rived at  the  only  meaning  good  and  bad  can  have. 

Or,  would  you  know  whether  this  is  God's  world 
or  no?  Turn  not  to  reputed  miracles,  and  indulge 
not  in  idle  dreams  of  another  world  in  which  the 
faulty  humanity  and  utter  finiteness  of  this  one  will 
have  found  its  supplement  and  correction  j  but,  take 
just  the  order  and  purpose  of  this  world  as  your  best 
experience  reveals  it  to  you.  It  may  be  that  this 
seeking  will  leave  you  dark,  puzzled,  uncertain  5  but 
better  the  unrest  of  judgment  suspended  than  the 
dream-like  peace  of  faith  unfounded. 

It  fortifies  my  soul  to  know 
That,  though  I  perish,  truth  is  so. 

wrote  Arthur  Clough.    And,  again,  he  has  written: 

To  spend  uncounted  years  of  pain, 

Again,  again  and  yet  again. 

In  working  out  in  heart  and  brain 

The  problem  of  our  being  here; 
To  gather  facts  from  far  and  near. 
Upon  the  mind  to  hold  them  clear, 
And,  knowing  more  may  yet  appear, 
Unto  one's  latest  breath  to  fear 
The  premature  result  to  draw  — 
Is  this  the  object,  end  and  law. 

And  purpose  of  our  being  here? 

226 


PRAGMATISM 

Over  these  verses   Clough   has   written :   "  Perche 
pensa?     Pensando  s'invecchia." 

Why  think,  indeed,  when  thinking  leaves  one  old 
— so  old,  so  cold,  so  sadly  wise?  That  thinking  — 
the  realist's  way  of  thinking  —  does  leave  one  in 
melancholy  mood  may  be  no  objection  to  thinking 
in  this  way  j  but  it  may  not  be  ignored  as  a  fact  of  his- 
tory. Realism's  hymn  of  triumph  is  written  by  the 
best  of  its  poets  and  the  most  sincere  of  its  prophets 
—  Leconte  de  Lisle.  One  does  not  attempt  to  trans- 
late a  Leconte  de  Lisle,  but  the  thought  of  the  final 
verses  of  his  poem  on  the  Southland  may  be  put  in 
some  such  way  as  this  — 

Man,  if  with  heart  full  of  joy  or  bitterness 
Thou  go  at  noonday  through  these  radiant  fields  — 
Flee!      Nature  is  empty  and  the  sun  consumes; 
Nothing  here  is  alive,  nothing  sad,  nothing  joyous. 

But  if  having  put  tears  behind  thee  and  laughter 
Thou  be  turned  to  forgetfulness  of  this  troubled  world, 
No  longer  knowing  how  to  pardon  nor  how  to  curse, 
And  would  taste  a  last  sad  volupte  — 

Come!      The  sun  speaks  to  thee  a  glorious  language; 
Lose  thyself  in  its  implacable  flame 
And  return  slow-footed  to  the  vile  city  of  men. 
Thy  soul  seven  times  steeped  in  divine  nothingness. 

227 


PRA.GMATISM 

It  is  like  that.  This  wandering  in  a  world  we  did 
not  make  and  cannot  change,  in  which  all  our  creat- 
ing is  illusory  —  a  chance  trivial  expression  of  what 
the  world  has  made  us  —  with  no  other  purpose  in 
our  wandering  but 

For  to  admire  and  for  to  see, 
For  to  be'old  this  world  so  wide, 

—  why  yes,  the  fulness  of  such  experience  comes  as 
near  as  can  be  to  bringing  us  to  a  seven-fold  sense 
of  the  neant  divin. 

Well,  when  a  man's  philosophy  has  turned  bitter 
to  his  tongue  and  hangs  heavy  on  his  heart,  there 
are  three  things  he  may  do.  He  may  abide  by  the 
consequences  of  his  philosophy,  and  seeing  no  fault 
in  the  premises  accept  the  conclusion  with  all  val- 
iance.  Or,  he  may  rebel  against  all  logic  and  reason 
and  trust  that  sympathies  and  antipathies  are  safer 
guides  to  truth  than  any  evidence  could  be.  Or, 
finally,  he  may  examine  the  premises  anew.  It  is, 
I  must  confess,  only  to  the  last  —  to  the  reasoners 
and  critics  who  go  patiently  to  work  to  re-examine 
old  beliefs  —  that  I  lend  a  respectful  ear.  But  I 
do  not  know  that  I  can  begin  an  account  of  the  back- 
ward swing  from  such  extreme  realism  as  I  have 
pictured  to  such  extreme  idealism  as  I  can  tell  only 
part  of  before  I  close,  better  than  by  letting  the 

228 


PRAGMATISM 

mere  spirit  of  unreasoning  revolt  against  this  selfless 
objectivity  express  itself. 

With  an  exquisite  insight  into  the  psychology  of 
those  he  calls  "  Wir  Gelehrten,"  and  with  no  care 
for  the  truth  or  error  of  the  ways  of  the  objective 
spirit,  Nietzsche  registers  his  revolt  against  all  this 
spirit  stands  for.  "  However  gratefully  we  may 
still  welcome  the  objective  spirit,"  he  writes  in  his 
"  Jenseits  von  Gut  und  Bose,"  "  in  the  end  we  must 
learn  to  put  some  caution  into  our  gratitude  and 
some  restraint  on  the  enthusiasm  with  which  selfless- 
ness and  impersonality  of  mind  have  come  to  be 
extolled  as  ends  in  themselves,  as  an  emancipation 
and  an  enlightenment.  The  objective  man  who  no 
longer  curses  or  upbraids,  the  ideal  scholar  in  whom 
the  scientific  instinct  after  a  thousand  whole  or  half 
failures  has  at  last  come  to  full  growth  and  blossom- 
ing, is  surely  the  most  precious  tool  there  isj  but  his 
proper  place  is  in  the  hands  of  a  stronger  man  than 
he  is.  We  say  he  is  an  instrument  —  he  is  a  mirror, 
he  is  no  end  in  himself.  The  objective  man  is  in- 
deed a  mirror.  Accustomed  to  subject  himself  to 
all  that  is  to  be  known,  without  any  other  pleasure 
than  such  as  the  knowing,  the  mirroring  gives,  he 
waits  till  something  comes  his  way,  then  spreads  him- 
self delicately  before  it  so  that  the  light  foot-steps 

229 


PRAGMATISM 

and  ghostly  passing  of  spirit  things  may  not  be  lost 
to  his  surface  and  integument.  What  there  is  of  a 
person  still  left  in  him  seems  to  him  accidental, 
often  arbitrary,  oftener  still  disturbing  j  so  much 
has  what  was  his  very  self  become  a  medium 
through  which  pass  and  in  which  are  reflected  for- 
eign forms  and  happenings.  If  he  tries  to  think 
about  himself  at  all,  it  is  an  effort  for  him  and  more 
often  than  not  a  failure.  He  changes  easily  j  he  tries 
to  grasp  his  own  needs,  and  only  then  is  he  clumsy 
and  awkward.  Perhaps  it  is  his  health  that  bothers 
him,  or  the  petty  pent-up  character  of  wife  or  friend, 
or  the  lack  of  companions  and  companionship.  Oh, 
yes,  he  tries  to  think  out  what  is  the  matter  with  him. 
No  use!  Already  his  thought  has  swept  on  to  the 
more  general  case,  and  tomorrow  he  will  know  as 
little  as  he  did  yesterday  what^s  to  be  done  about  it. 
He  has  lost  serious  interest  in  himself,  time  spent 
on  himself  is  wasted.  He  is  cheerful,  not  for  want 
of  things  to  worry  about,  but  for  want  of  fingers 
and  hands  to  lay  hold  on  his  trouble.  His  way  of 
taking  whatever  turns  up,  his  sunny  unconstrained 
hospitality  to  anything  that  comes  along,  his  way  of 
wishing  everybody  well,  his  dangerous  indifference 
to  the  difference  between  yes  and  no  —  ah,  how 
often  he  has  to  pay  for  these  his  virtues!  And,  as 
just  a  man,  he  is  too  often  taken  for  the  caput  mor- 

230 


PRAGMATISM 

tuum  of  these  virtues.  Would  you  have  him  love 
or  hate  —  I  mean  love  or  hate  as  God,  women  and 
brutes  understand  love  and  hate  —  why,  he  will  do 
the  best  he  can  and  give  what  he  can.  But  no  one 
should  be  disappointed  if  this  is  not  muchj  if  just 
here  he  shows  himself  ungenuine,  unattached,  un- 
reliable —  rotten.  His  love  is  thought  out,  his  hates 
are  trumped  up  and  rather  a  tour  de  force,  little  side 
issues  and  exaggerations.  He  is  only  genuine  when 
nothing  prevents  him  from  being  objective.  His 
mirroring  and  everlastingly  even  soul  can  no  longer 
say  "  yes,"  no  longer  say  "  no."  It  imposes  nothing 
on  anything,  neither  does  it  upset  anything.  It 
says  with  Leibnitz,  "  Je  ne  meprise  presque  rien." 
If  in  this  passage  Nietzsche  reveals  his  delicate 
antipathy  for  a  character  we  had  all  been  taught  to 
worship,  in  others  he  shows  himself  a  pragmatist 
before  that  word  had  been  heard  of.  The  philos- 
opher for  him  is  no  wanderer  of  the  seas,  accepting 
what  shores  he  comes  upon  whether  they  smile  on 
him  or  frown.  For  Nietzsche,  the  philosopher  is 
a  Caesarian  conqueror  who  has  his  way  with  truth, 
and  truth  is  such  a  thing  as  a  strong  man  may  have 
his  way  with. 

But,   "  I   am  not  of  those   of  whom   one  asks 
^  why?  '  "     Nietzsche  has  somewhere  written,  and 

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PRAGMATISM 

this  is  so  true  that  I  can  use  him  for  no  more  than 
a  vehement  example  of  spleen.  If  I  am  to  enter 
upon  the  path  of  a  more  or  less  reasoned  reaction 
against  that  objectivity  we  have  all  sometime  held 
sacred,  I  must  turn  to  those  of  whom  one  can  ask 
"  why?  ''    And,  notably,  to  William  James. 

Now,  if  I  do  turn  to  James  to  ask  him  "  why?  " 
—  Why  is  not  the  realist,  with  all  his  sad  heroism 
and  resigned  courage,  the  noblest  and  best  that  man 
has  imagined?  —  he  answers,  or  I  take  him  to. 
Because  realism  is  a  philosophy  of  little  faith! 
Faith  it  is  that  makes  worlds,  realistic  science  has 
only  the  wit  to  acknowledge  and  the  strength  to 
sufiFer  what  faith  has  wrought.  Bold  to  endure,  it 
is  timid  to  change,  and  a  world  in  the  making  needs 
its  makers,  needs  its  poets  and  actors  more  than  it 
needs  audience  or  spectator.  At  the  bottom  of  the 
realist's  brave  heart  lurks  an  abiding  fear  —  the  fear 
of  making  a  fool  of  himself.  But  a  world  in  the 
making  like  a  battle  in  the  fighting  cries  out  for 
fools  and  the  foolhardy.  Fiaith  risks  to  the  point 
of  folly,  and  because  all  making  anew  is  a  colossal 
risk,  let  us  have  colossal  faith. 

Here,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  you  have  the  prin- 
cipal difference  between  the  realism  that  went  be- 
fore and  the  pragmatism  that  came  after.  The 
faith  which  the  builders  rejected  is  become  the  head 

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PRAGMATISM 

of  the  corner.  For  there  are  such  things,  the  prag- 
matist  contends,  as  faiths  that  realize  themselves,  be- 
liefs that  come  true  only  because  they  are  firmly 
held  and  courageously  acted  upon,  hopes  that  would 
never  have  been  fulfilled  had  not  he  who  held  them 
gone  ahead  in  the  confident  expectation  that  they 
would  be  fulfilled.  Take,  James  would  have  you, 
just  that  familiar  class  of  questions  of  fact,  "  ques- 
tions concerning  personal  relations,  states  of  mind 
between  one  man  and  another.  Do  you  like  me  or 
not?  —  for  example.  Whether  you  do  or  not  de- 
pends, in  countless  instances,  on  whether  I  meet  you 
half  way,  am  willing  to  assume  that  you  must  like 
me,  and  show  you  trust  and  expectation.  The  pre- 
vious faith  on  my  part  in  your  liking's  existence  is 
in  such  cases  what  makes  your  liking  come.  But  if 
I  stand  aloof,  and  refuse  to  budge  an  inch  until  I 
have  objective  evidence,  until  you  shall  have  done 
something  apt  [as  the  realists  say]  ad  extorquen- 
dum  assensufn  meuniy  ten  to  one  your  liking  never 
comes.  How  many  women's  hearts  are  vanquished 
by  the  mere  sanguine  insistence  of  some  man  that 
they  must  love  him!  He  will  not  consent  to  the 
hypothesis  that  they  cannot.  The  desire  for  a  cer- 
tain kind  of  truth  here  brings  about  that  special 
truth's  existence,  and  so  it  is  in  innumerable  cases 
of  other  sorts.     Who  gains  promotions,  boons,  ap- 

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PRAGMATISM 

pointments,  but  the  man  in  whose  life  they  are  seen 
to  play  the  part  of  live  hypotheses,  who  discounts 
them,  sacrifices  other  things  for  their  sake  before 
they  have  come,  and  takes  risks  for  them  in  advance? 
His  faith  acts  on  the  powers  above  him  as  a  claim, 
and  creates  its  own  verification." 

These  be  but  trifling  affairs  of  commonplace  life 
if  you  will,  but  the  imagination  sweeps  easily  on 
from  the  relation  of  man  and  man  to  all  that  man's 
work  which  is  done  shoulder  to  shoulder.  "  A  social 
organism,"  James  goes  on,  "  of  any  sort  whatever, 
large  or  small,  is  what  it  is  because  each  member 
proceeds  to  his  own  duty  with  a  trust  that  the  other 
members  will  simultaneously  do  theirs.  Wherever 
a  desired  result  is  achieved  by  the  co-operation  of 
many  independent  persons,  its  existence  as  a  fact  is 
a  pure  consequence  of  the  precursive  faith  in  one 
another  of  those  immediately  concerned.  A  gov- 
ernment, an  army,  a  commercial  system,  a  ship,  a 
college,  an  athletic  team,  all  exist  on  this  condition, 
without  which  not  only  is  nothing  achieved,  but 
nothing  is  even  attempted.  A  whole  train  of  pas- 
sengers (individually  brave  enough)  will  be  looted 
by  a  few  highwaymen,  simply  because  the  latter  can 
count  on  one  another,  while  each  passenger  fears 
that  if  he  makes  a  movement  of  resistance,  he  will 
be  shot  before  anyone  else  backs  him  up.     If  we 

234 


PRAGMATISM 

believed  that  the  whole  car-full  would  rise  at  once 
with  us,  we  should  each  severally  rise,  and  train 
robbing  would  never  even  be  attempted." 

Have  you  ever,  O  patient  reader,  in  the  heat  of 
a  political  campaign  for  what  you  thought  were 
better  things  met  with  that  cool  chilling  intelligence 
that  hastens  to  warn  you  against  trying  to  change 
human  nature?  As  it  was  in  the  beginning  it  is  now 
and  ever  shall  be,  gangs  without  end.  Amen!  And 
he  is  right,  this  unduped  and  undupable  intelligence 
is  right  —  but  on  one  condition  only:  The  world 
will  always  be  as  it  was  at  the  beginning  if  it  is 
exclusively  inhabited  by  unduped  and  undupable  in- 
telligences—  by  realists,  in  short.  Or,  have  you 
ever  tried  to  refresh  your  tired  soul  with  what  the 
Germans  have  written  of  Realpolitik?  If  so,  you 
will  already  know  a  great  deal  of  what  pragmatism 
is  not.  It  is  not  a  philosophy  of  the  "  what  never 
has  been  never  can  be  "  temper  of  mind. 

"  There  are  cases,"  James  puts  it,  "  where  a  fact 
cannot  come  at  all  unless  a  preliminary  faith  exists 
in  its  coming.  And  where  faith  in  a  fact  can  help 
create  the  fact,  that  would  be  an  insane  logic  which 
would  say  [with  Huxley]  that  faith  running  ahead 
of  scientific  evidence  is  the  ^  lowest  kind  of  immor- 
ality into  which  a  thinking  being  may  fall.' .  .  ." 

I  am  afraid  there  is  about  the  pragmatist  some- 

235 


PRAGMATISM 

thing  of  that  dangerous  citizen  who  will  not  hesitate 
on  occasion  to  grasp  this  sorry  scheme  of  things  en- 
tire and  shatter  it  to  bits,  full  of  the  faith  that  it 
can  be  remoulded  closer  to  the  heart's  desire. 

"  But  now,"  James  returns  to  his  argument, 
"  these  are  all  childish  human  cases,  and  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  great  cosmical  matters,  like  the 
question  of  religious  faith.  Let  us  then  pass  on  to 
that.    .    .    . 

"  To  most  of  us  religion  comes  in  a  way  that  makes 
a  veto  on  our  active  faith  illogical.  The  more  perfect 
and  more  eternal  aspect  of  the  universe  is  represented 
in  our  religions  as  having  a  personal  form.  The  uni- 
verse is  no  longer  a  mere  It  to  us,  but  a  ThoUy  if  we 
are  religious  j  and  any  relation  that  may  be  possible 
from  person  to  person  might  be  possible  here.  For 
instance,  although  in  one  sense  we  are  passive  por- 
tions of  the  universe,  in  another  we  show  a  curious 
autonomy,  as  if  we  were  small  active  centers  on  our 
own  account.  We  feel,  too,  as  if  the  appeal  of  re- 
ligion to  us  were  made  to  our  own  active  good-will, 
as  if  evidence  might  be  forever  withheld  unless  we 
met  the  hypothesis  half  way.  To  take  a  trivial  il- 
lustration: just  as  a  man  who,  in  a  company  of 
gentlemen  made  no  advances,  asked  a  warrant  for 
every  concession,  and  believed  no  one's  word  with- 

236 


PRAGMATISM 

out  proof,  would  cut  himself  off  by  such  churlishness 
from  all  the  social  rewards  that  a  more  trusting 
spirit  would  earn,  —  so  here,  one  who  should  shut 
himself  up  in  snarling  logicality  and  try  to  make 
the  gods  extort  his  recognition  willy-nilly,  or  not 
get  it  at  all,  might  cut  himself  off  forever  from  his 
only  opportunity  of  making  the  gods'  acquaintance. 
This  feeling  .  .  .  that  by  obstinately  believing 
that  there  are  gods  ...  we  are  doing  the  uni- 
verse the  deepest  service  we  can,  seems  part  of  the 
being  and  essence  of  the  religious  hypothesis." 

I  do  not  lay  this  passage  before  you  as  an  example 
of  clear  thinking  and  cogent  reasoning.  Who  does 
not  find  it  baffling,  elusive,  leading  to  no  kind  of 
action,  must  have  a  mind  differently  constituted 
from  mine  or  from  any  with  which  I  am  more  in- 
timately acquainted.  It  is,  if  you  please,  the  groping 
of  a  faith  that  feels  it  has  a  right  to  exist,  but  does 
not  know  as  yet  what  is  right  for  it  to  do.  All  of 
which  is  most  unpragmatic  —  not  at  all  practical. 
But  perhaps  this  very  quality,  this  manner  of 
James's  of  feeling  his  way  through  the  dark  en 
tdtonnanty  with  his  heart's  courage  for  his  only  light, 
is  what  most  endears  him  to  our  age.  We  sit  with 
Zarathustra  midst  shattered  tables  of  the  law,  and 
our  awkward  fingers  cannot  grave  new  ones  hur- 
riedly.    We  fumble,  we  hesitate,  we  begin  again. 

237 


PRAGMATISM 

We  fumble,  we  hesitate,  but  we  do^  if  we  are  ideal- 
ists, begin  again. 

Now,  one  of  the  new  things  we  have  tried  is  just 
this  manner  of  meeting  the  universe  half  way  in  the 
matter  of  religious  faith.  And  this  trial  has  been 
no  interchange  of  philosophical  abstractions  j  but  a 
struggle  of  very  living  men.  To  tell  about  it  will 
perhaps  illustrate  better  than  anything  else  the  ap- 
peal pragmatism  made  to  some  and  the  oflFense  it 
gave  to  others. 

We  have  all  known,  though  doubtless  our  fathers 
knew  him  better,  that  studious  theologian  who,  as 
proof  of  a  devout  life's  industry,  left  behind  him 
a  Testament  worn  to  something  like  its  elemental 
dust.  He  was  a  realist  in  temperament,  and  sought 
God  and  God's  meaning  in  documents  as  an  his- 
torian might  seek  to  reconstruct  some  character  of 
the  past  from  the  archives.  He  was  supplemented 
in  his  labors  by  learned  indefatigable  searchers  of 
other  remains  of  the  past  from  whose  ruins  they 
sought  to  bring  corroborative  testimony.  He  was 
opposed  only  by  other  students  who  had  pored  over 
their  Testaments  with  equal  devotion,  if  to  opposite 
purpose,  and  by  other  archaeologists  who  had 
searched  the  ruins  with  equal  pains,  if  with  other 
result.    But  protagonist  and  antagonist  alike  of  the 

238 


PRAGMATISM 

Christianity  into  which  we  were  born  were  realists. 
Neither  dreamt  that  the  existence  or  non-existence, 
the  benevolence  or  cruelty,  the  oneness  or  manyness 
of  God  were  matters  with  which  his  personal  wishes 
and  strivings,  his  finite  wantings  and  not  wantings 
could  have  anything  to  do.  If  you  had  suggested 
to  either  that  perhaps  God  was  still  in  the  making 
and  that  those  who  would  know  Him  must  strain 
their  eyes  toward  the  future,  not  keep  them  fixed 
on  the  past  —  it  is  a  question  which  would  have 
been  first  to  put  you  down  as  an  impious  fellow  and 
a  blasphemer. 

How  different  from  all  this  is  the  spirit  of  that 
recent  movement  within  the  Christian  church  that  is 
generally  called  Modernism!  "Defined  and  con- 
demned in  the  encyclical  Pascendiy^  writes  J.  Bour- 
deau,  in  1 907,  "  modernism  continues  to  fill  the 
reviews  and  the  periodicals,  even  those  that  ordi- 
narily treat  of  matters  profane.  This  internal  crisis 
of  Catholicism,  this  new  attempt  to  reconcile  the 
church  with  the  times,  aimed  at  internal  reform,  not 
at  schism.  It  was  destined  to  end  in  the  excommu- 
nication or  interdiction  of  some  of  its  more  refrac- 
tory spirits  and  in  the  submission  of  almost  all. 
And  yet,  by  those  who  shared  its  hopes,  modernism 
is  not  looked  upon  as  the  bed  of  a  torrent  from  now 
on  to  be  dryj  it  runs  like  an  underground  river,  and 

239 


PRAGMATISM 

some  day,  perhaps,  will  come  to  the  surface  again 
with  sufficient  force  to  sweep  away  the  dikes." 

Well,  this  modernism  which  M.  Bourdeau,  in  his 
little  volume,  "  Pragmatisme  et  Modernisme," 
brackets  with  pragmatism  as  being  of  the  same 
temper,  is,  like  all  other  modernities,  not  very  new. 
We  associate  it  with  such  names  as  Father  Tyrrel, 
in  England  j  I'Abbe  Loisy,  in  France  j  the  senator 
and  novelist  Fogazzaro,  in  Italy,  and  if  the  matter 
has  interested  us,  with  a  host  of  other  writers  no  less 
distinguished.  But  it  is  really  of  the  essence  of 
Newman,  and  goes  back  to  Pascal.  For  "  The 
heart,"  Pascal  has  said,  "  has  its  reasons  that  the 
reason  does  not  understand."  It  was  to  these  rea- 
sons that  Newman  listened,  and  offers  us  again  in 
his  "  Grammar  of  Assent,"  and  it  is  these  reasons 
that  modernism  would  have  to  be  the  only  ones  on 
which  Christianity  can  be  safely  founded. 

But  what  are  they,  these  reasons,  and  what  does 
this  voice  of  the  heart  say?  Its  first  clear  utterance 
is  negative.  It  does  not  care  who  wrote  the  various 
books  of  the  Scriptures,  or  what  corroborative  or 
contradictory  evidence  those  who  study  the  docu- 
ments and  monuments  of  the  past  may  come  upon. 
"  Higher  critics,"  so  far  from  being  its  enemies,  are 
welcome  participants  in  its  cause.  As  little  does  it 
cling  to  the  literal  sense  of  the  various  dogmatic  in- 

240 


PRAGMATISM 

terpretations  the  Church  has  from  time  to  time  put 
upon  the  sacred  writings.  Would  you  know,  for 
example,  whether  there  is  a  Real  Presence?  Mod- 
ernism would  answer:  The  Eucharist  is  indeed 
meaningless  unless  there  be  a  Real  Presence  j  but 
whether  Christ  is  really  there  for  you  or  not  depends 
on  you  alone.    And  the  like  of  other  dogmas. 

Yet  it  would  appear  that  history,  sacred,  ecclesi- 
astical, or  profane,  is  no  dead  letter  to  the  modernist. 
He  is  intensely  conscious  and  amply  studious  of  the 
past.  Nor  will  he,  if  I  make  him  out,  permit  its 
episodes  to  be  treated  as  symbols,  parables  and  al- 
legories. No,  the  past  tells  the  story  of  a  great 
religious  truth  in  the  making.  If  you  ask  him  what 
Christianity  is,  he  will  tell  you  it  isn't,  it  never  has 
been,  it  never  will  be  any  definitely  finished  thing 5 
but  for  him  it  is  the  best  guide  to  living  that  he 
with  all  his  devotion  and  all  his  thought  can  make  it. 
The  modernists  are  Christians  because  they  are  heirs 
to,  and  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  as 
they  are  not  inspired  of  the  Buddha  or  of  Confucius. 
Yes,  they  are  devout  Catholics  because  they  can 
work  better  at  the  making  of  a  religion  in  the  at- 
mosphere of  their  ancestral  church  than  in  any  other 
air.  Religion  to  them  is  to  aid  in  the  way  best 
suited  to  their  temperaments  and  traditions  in  the 
evolution  of  religion  5   for  them  Christianity  is  in 

241 


PRAGMATISM 

process,  and  we  are  the  potters  that  mould  it,  not  the 
explorers  that  discover  it. 

Well,  J.  Bourdeau  is  not  wrong j  modernism 
and  pragmatism  are  indeed  of  like  temper  and  chil- 
dren of  the  same  age  —  an  age  of  troubled  outlook, 
but  of  brave  if  chastened  hope.  The  contrast  be- 
tween the  realistic  theologian  with  his  ancient  texts, 
documents,  monuments,  and  the  idealistic  theologian 
who  turns  to  the  past  not  for  authority  but  for 
guidance,  not  for  facts  but  for  a  sense  of  tendency 
and  direction  —  this  contrast  is  not  unlike  that  other 
one  pragmatism  has  brought  about  between  "  Natu- 
ral Religion  "  and  what  I  may  call  "  Human  Re- 
ligion." Natural  religion  sought  in  the  order  of 
nature  evidence  of  its  designer,  of  a  thoughtful  pur- 
pose back  of  or  in  it,  the  same  spirit  that  a 
naturalist  might  hunt  for  the  tracks  of  a  mastodon 
or  follow  the  wanderings  of  a  glacier.  For  the 
humanist,  the  purpose  of  nature  is  a  thing  in  the 
making,  and  we  are  here  to  help  make  it.  It  will 
turn  out  as  our  finite  efforts  form  it  —  good  or  bad, 
as  we  are  good  or  badj  wise  or  not,  as  we  are.  The 
practical  message  of  "  Human  Religion  "  is  pretty 
much  that  with  which  James  closes  his  little  essay, 
"  Is  Life  Worth  Living?  "  "  Be  not  afraid  of  life. 
Believe  that  life  is  worth  living  and  your  belief 
helps  create  the  fact.    The  ^  scientific  proof  '  that  you 

242 


PRAGMATISM 

are  right  may  not  be  clear  before  the  day  of  judg- 
ment (or  some  stage  of  being  which  that  expression 
may  serve  to  symbolize)  is  reached.  But  the  faith- 
ful fighters  of  this  hour,  or  the  beings  that  then  and 
there  will  represent  them,  may  then  turn  to  the  faint- 
hearted who  here  decline  to  go  on  with  words  like 
those  with  which  Henry  IV.  greeted  the  tardy  Cril- 
lon  after  a  great  victory  had  been  gained :  ^  Hang 
yourself,  brave  Crillon!  we  fought  at  Arques,  and 
you  were  not  there.' " 

I  have  tried  to  show  pragmatism  as  a  moment  in 
the  swing  of  thought  from  realism  to  idealism,  and 
how  for  it  the  most  vital,  that  is  to  say,  the  moral 
and  religious  aspects  of  our  world  are  things  to 
work  and  fight  for,  to  make  and  to  mould,  not 
just  to  find  and  come  across.  Its  god  is  indeed  a 
god  of  battles,  and  we  are  his  soldiers  on  whom  his 
victory  depends.  But  as  I  view  this  battle,  it  is  not 
to  be  fought  out  in  heart  throes  and  outpourings  of 
sentiment.  These  may  indeed  change  and  better 
human  relationships  j  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  human  relationships  exist  in  a  physical  universe 
that  is  older  than  they,  and  promises  to  outlast  them. 
Now,  just  the  physics  of  things  show  a  strong  tend- 
ency to  be  amoral  and  atheistic.  "You  all  know 
the  picture  of  the  last  state  of  the  universe  which 

243 


PRAGMATISM 

evolutionary  science  foresees.  I  cannot  state  it  bet- 
ter than  in  Mr.  Balfour's  words:  ^  The  energies  of 
our  system  will  decay,  the  glory  of  the  sun  will  be 
dimmed,  and  the  earth,  tideless  and  inert,  will  no 
longer  tolerate  the  race  which  has  for  a  moment  dis- 
turbed its  solitude.  Man  will  go  down  into  the  pit 
and  all  his  thoughts  will  perish.  The  uneasy  con- 
sciousness which  in  this  obscure  corner  has  for  a  brief 
space  broken  the  contented  silence  of  the  universe 
will  be  at  rest.  Matter  will  know  itself  no  longer. 
"  Imperishable  monuments "  and  "  immortal 
deeds,"  death  itself,  and  love  stronger  than  death, 
will  be  as  if  they  had  not  been.  Nor  will  anything 
that  is  be  better  or  worse  for  all  that  the  labor, 
genius,  devotion,  and  suffering  of  man  have  striven 
through  countless  ages  to  effect.' 

"  That,"  comments  James,  "  is  the  sting  of  it, 
that  in  the  vast  drifting  of  the  cosmic  weather, 
though  many  a  jeweled  shore  appears,  and  many 
an  enchanted  cloud-bank  floats  away,  long  lingering 
ere  it  be  dissolved  —  even  as  ours  now  lingers  for 
our  j  oy  —  yet,  when  these  transient  products  are 
gone,  nothing,  absolutely  nothing  remains  to  repre- 
sent those  particular  qualities,  those  elements  of 
preciousness  which  they  may  have  enshrined.  Dead 
and  gone  are  they,  gone  utterly  from  the  very 
sphere  and  room  of  being.    Without  an  echoj  with- 

244 


PRAGMATISM 

out  a  memory^  without  an  influence  on  aught 
that  may  come  after  to  make  it  care  for  similar 
ideals." ' 

Has  not,  then,  realism  the  last  word  in  this  argu- 
ment and  does  not  the  rolling  mechanism  of  things 
have  its  way  with  us  in  the  end  —  since  it  compasses 
not  only  our  death,  but  the  collapse  of  the  very 
theatre  in  which  our  little  lives  have  played  them- 
selves out? 

No,  I  should  say,  this  is  not  the  moral  of  the 
tale,  though  there  is  a  moral  to  the  tale.  "  Knowl- 
edge," writes  Francis  Bacon,  in  his  "  Novum 
Organum,"  "  knowledge  and  human  power  are 
synonymous."  So  are  human  impotence  and  human 
ignorance  synonymous.  The  child  that  dips  a  cup  of 
water  from  the  fountain  is  subduing  nature's  mech- 
anism to  its  needs.  It  is  only  a  question  of  how  great 
is  our  knowledge  if  we  would  know  how  great  is  our 
power. 

We  die,  our  world  dies,  only  because  we  know  no 
better,  have  thought  of  no  way  of  preventing  j  but 
knowledge  and  human  power  are  indeed  synony- 
mous, and  I  know  of  no  end  to  either.  But,  as  for 
those  of  us  bound  to  die  before  we  have  learned 
how  not  to,  and  as  for  our  children  whose  world 
may  well  vanish  before  they  have  thought  of  a  way 

^  Pragmatism,  p.    1 04. 
245 


PRAGMATISM 

of  saving  it,  we  have  always  this  solace  —  that  we 
know  we  are  facing  the  only  way  salvation  can  come 
from  when  our  face  is  toward  science.  "  For  na- 
ture," says  Bacon,  with  his  queer  crooked  smile, — 
"  nature  is  only  subdued  by  submission." 


246 


IX 

PROGRESS 


PROGRESS 

We  little  realize,  until  we  have  met  them  socially, 
how  engaging  the  manners  of  cannibals  can  be.  It 
is  unfortunate  that  so  many  obstacles  lie  in  the  way 
of  our  making  their  better  acquaintance,  —  they  live 
so  far  out  of  town  for  one  thing,  and  for  another 
are  so  clannish  a  set  that  only  occasionally  is  one  of 
our  sort  welcomed  to  their  inner  circles.  Yet  when 
one  who  has  had  this  fortune  returns  to  tell  about 
it,  —  which  happens  too  rarely  —  we  can  see  it  has 
been  a  revelation  to  him  and  an  enlightenment. 
There  is  that  friend  of  our  youth,  Herman  Mel- 
ville, who  about  the  year  1840  was  entertained  by 
the  Marquesan  Islanders  —  I  swear  that  as  I  read 
him  I  find  something  very  winning  about  the  ways 
of  these  people.  It  is  true  they  were  what  Melville 
calls  "  occasional  cannibals  "5  but  although  canni- 
balism, however  occasional,  cannot  win  our  entire 
approval  (perhaps  because,  as  Montaigne  suggests, 
we  have  learned  how  much  better  it  is  to  torment 
our  enemies  alive  than  to  consume  them  dead)  yet 
it  is  not  wise  or  just  to  allow  our  prejudice  against 
an  odd  local  custom  to  blind  us  to  so  much  that  is 
fair  in  their  lives. 

249 


PROGRESS 

For  much  there  is  that  is  fair  in  the  lives  of  the 
T)^pees.  Dwelling  on  that  enchanted  island  of  the 
Pacific,  their  lines  are  cast  in  pleasant  places.  The 
asperities  which  civilization  seems  rather  to  have 
aggravated  than  smoothed  do  not  roughen  their  way. 
Their  existence  is  passed  in  the  midst  of  tropical 
plenty,  on  which  their  numbers,  few  and  not  on 
the  increase,  make  light  demand.  They  toil  not  to 
cover  what  nature  has  conceived  in  innocence,  and 
spin  but  lightly  to  adorn  what  nature  has  fashioned 
fair.  Little  thought  do  they  take  on  their  housing. 
"  There  are  few  villages,"  Melville  tells  us,  "  the 
houses  stand  here  and  there  in  the  shadow  of  groves 
or  are  scattered  along  the  banks  of  the  winding 
stream  J  their  bamboo  sides  and  their  gleaming  white 
thatch  forming  a  beautiful  contrast  to  the  perpetual 
verdure  in  which  they  are  embowered.  There  are 
no  roads  of  any  kind  in  the  valley^  nothing  but  a 
labyrinth  of  foot  paths  twisting  and  turning  without 
end."  Yet  the  morals  of  these  people  do  not  seem 
to  have  been  so  far  below  our  standards  as  their 
benighted  condition  might  lead  us  to  expect. 
"  There  seemed,"  says  Melville,  "  to  be  no  rogues 
of  any  sort  in  Typee.  In  the  darkest  nights  the 
natives  slept  securely  with  all  their  worldly  wealth 
around  them,  in  houses  the  doors  of  which  were 
never  fastened.     The  disquieting  thought  of  theft 

250 


PROGRESS 

and  assassination  never  disturbed  them.  Each 
islander  reposed  beneath  his  own  palmetto  thatch- 
ing, or  sat  under  his  own  breadfruit  tree,  with  none 
to  molest  or  alarm  him.  There  was  not  a  padlock 
in  the  valley." 

I  had  gone  so  far  in  one  of  my  readings  of  Mel- 
ville, and  was  beginning  to  wonder  in  the  back  of 
my  head  what  a  Typee  introduced  into  our  civi- 
lization could  find  to  say  of  us  half  as  pleasant  as 
the  things  their  guest  had  noted  of  them,  when  I 
recalled  that  another  had  long  ago  put  the  like  ques- 
tion to  himself  when  he  was  in  much  better  position 
to  answer  it.  It  was  when  the  New  World  was  very 
much  newer  than  it  is  now,  that  Villegaignon  landed 
in  a  country  he  surnamed  Antarctic  France,  where 
dwelt  a  people  of  cannibals  the  very  counterpart  (as 
I  judge)  of  our  friends  the  Typees.  "  Three  of 
these  people,"  the  Sieur  de  Montaigne  records, 
"were  at  Rouen  in  the  reign  of  our  late  King,  Charles 
the  Ninth,  who  talked  with  them  a  great  while. 
They  were  showed  our  fashions,  our  pomp,  and  the 
form  of  a  fair  cityj  afterwards  some  demanded  their 
advice,  and  would  needs  know  of  them  what  things 
of  note  and  admirable  they  had  observed  amongst  us. 
They  answered  three  things,"  ...  of  which  Mon- 
taigne seems  particularly  impressed  with  this  one: 
"  They  had  perceived  [they  said]  there  were  men 

251 


PROGRESS 

among  us  full  gorged  with  all  sorts  o£  commodities, 
and  others  which  hunger-starved  and  bare  with  need 
and  poverty  begged  at  their  gates:  and  found  it 
strange  these  moieties  [they  have  a  phrase  whereby 
they  call  men  but  a  moiety  one  of  another]  —  strange 
these  moieties  so  needy  could  endure  such  an  in- 
justice, and  that  they  took  not  the  others  by  the 
throat,  or  set  fire  to  their  houses." 

I  do  not  suppose  Montaigne  approved,  any  more 
than  we  can,  the  touch  of  savagery  that  concludes 
these  observations  j  but  on  the  whole  they  seem  to 
have  confirmed  him  in  certain  opinions  he  had  al- 
ready formed  on  the  pretended  advantages  of  civ- 
ilized over  barbarous  life.  For  this  occasion  on 
which  he  actually  met  and  conversed  with  the  canni- 
bals was  not  the  first  acquaintance  he  had  with  them. 
There  had  long  been  with  him  a  certain  serving-man 
who  had  spent  some  ten  or  twelve  years  in  their 
country,  and  seems  to  have  given  his  master  much 
the  same  account  of  them  as  Melville  has  given  us 
of  the  Typees.  I  cannot  refrain  from  recalling  in 
Montaigne's  own  words  his  reflections  on  the  whole 
spectacle  of  savagery  and  civilization: 

"Now  I  find,"  he  says,  "  as  far  as  I  have  been 
informed,  there  is  nothing  in  that  nation  that  is 
either  barbarous  or  savage,  —  unless  men  call  that 
barbarism  which  is  not  common  to  them.    .    .    ., 

252 


PROGRESS 

They  are  even  savage  as  we  call  those  fruits  wild 
which  nature  of  herself  and  of  her  ordinary  progress 
hath  produced,  —  whereas,  indeed,  they  are  those 
which  ourselves  have  ordered  by  our  artificial  de- 
vices and  diverted  from  their  common  order  we 
should  rather  term  savage.  In  those  are  the  true 
and  most  profitable  virtues,  and  natural  properties 
most  lively  and  vigorous,  which  in  these  we  have 
bastardized,  applying  them  to  the  pleasure  of  our 
corrupted  taste.  .  .  .  And  if  notwithstanding,  in 
diverse  fruits  of  those  countries  that  were  never 
tilled,  we  shall  find  that  in  respect  of  ours  they  are 
most  excellent  and  as  delicate  to  the  taste,  there  is 
no  reason  art  should  gain  the  point  of  honor  over 
our  puissant  mother  Nature.  We  have  so  much  by 
our  invention  surcharged  the  beauties  and  riches  of 
her  works,  that  we  have  altogether  choked  her  j  yet 
wherever  her  purity  shineth,  she  maketh  our  vain 
and  frivolous  enterprises  wonderfully  ashamed. 

Et  veniunt  hederae  sponte  sua  melius, 
Surgit  et  in  solis  formosior  arbutus  antris, 
Et  volucres  nulla  dulcius  arte  canunt. 

All  our  endeavor  or  wit  cannot  so  much  as  reach 
to  represent  the  nest  of  the  least  birdlet,  ,  .  .  no, 
nor  the  web  of  a  silly  spider.    .    .    . 

253 


PROGRESS 

"  Those  nations  seem  therefore  so  barbarous  unto 
me  because  they  have  received  very  little  fashion 
from  human  wit,  and  are  yet  near  their  original 
naturality.  The  laws  of  nature  do  yet  command 
them  which  are  but  little  bastardized  by  ours,  and 
that  with  such  purity  as  I  am  sometimes  grieved  the 
knowledge  of  it  came  not  sooner  to  light,  what  time 
there  were  men  that,  better  than  we,  could  have 
judged  of  it.  I  am  sorry  Lycurgus  and  Plato  had 
it  not  J  for  me  seemeth  that  what  in  these  nations 
we  see  by  experience  doth  not  only  exceed  all  the 
pictures  wherewith  licentious  poesy  hath  proudly 
embellished  the  Golden  Age,  but  also  the  conception 
and  desire  of  philosophy.  ...  It  is  a  nation, 
would  I  answer  Plato,  that  hath  no  kind  of  traffic, 
no  knowledge  of  letters,  no  name  of  magistrate  nor 
of  politic  priority,  no  use  of  service,  of  riches  or  of 
poverty,  no  occupation  but  idle,  no  respect  of  kin- 
dred but  common,  no  apparel  but  natural,  no  meas- 
uring of  lands,  no  use  of  wine,  corn  or  metal.  .  .  . 
The  very  words  that  import  lying,  falsehood, 
treason,  dissimulation,  covetousness,  envy,  detraction 
and  pardon  were  never  heard  of  amongst  them. 
How  dissonant  would  Plato  find  his  imaginary  com- 
monwealth from  this  perfection? 

Hos  natura  modos  primum  dedit..  " 
254 


PROGRESS 

I  had  thought  to  begin  a  sound  philosophical  ac- 
count of  the  nature  of  progress  with  a  picture,  not, 
if  I  could  help  it,  unsympathetic,  of  man's  condition 
before  he  had  felt  its  benefits.  The  plan  would 
recommend  itself  to  any  philosopher  as  suitable  and 
convenient  to  its  purpose,  yet  here  am  I  well  beyond 
the  beginning  of  my  discourse,  still  lingering  with 
the  cannibals,  and,  what  is  worse,  sensible  that  I 
have  not  been  diligent  to  uncover  the  many  causes 
there  must  be  for  rejoicing  that  we  are  not  as  they 
were.  Not  that  there  is  any  difficulty  in  pointing 
to  the  host  of  things  we  can  do  which  they  could 
not.  We  have  only  to  mount  in  one  of  our  winged 
ships  and  look  down  on  the  simple  Typee  rubbing 
two  sticks  together  for  their  spark,  to  see  in  all  the 
distance  that  lies  between  us  the  like  of  what  Pro- 
metheus scaled  Heaven  for.  But  what  in  all  this  is 
there  to  rejoice  over? 

It  is  singular  how  many  have  asked  this  question 
and  found  no  answer,  or  have  answered  —  Nothing. 
I  do  not  cite  the  licentious  poets  Montaigne  refers 
to  as  having  invented  a  Golden  Age  and  feigned 
a  happy  condition  of  man  before  progress  had 
spoiled  the  world  for  him  3  although  these  are  many, 
and  if  their  wisdom  is  not  of  the  philosopher's  kind, 
yet  is  it  all  the  closer  to  that  "  ancient  wisdom  of 
childhood  "  a  wise  man  does  well  to  keep  near  him. 

255 


PROGRESS 

But  even  learned  academies  have  thought  the  ques- 
tion not  beyond  their  interest  and  study.  In  1749, 
the  Academy  of  Dijon  set  for  the  prize  competition 
of  the  following  year  the  question,  "  Whether  the 
progress  of  the  arts  and  sciences  had  contributed  to 
the  purification  of  life?  "  The  prize  was  won  by  J.- 
J.  Rousseau.  His  little  essay,  generally  known  as 
the  "  Discours  sur  les  Sciences  et  les  Arts,"  worked 
on  the  thought  of  its  time  as  seldom  so  casual  a 
thing.  "  One  cannot,"  Jean-Jacques  wrote  then, 
"  one  cannot  reflect  on  the  ways  of  life  without 
finding  pleasure  in  recalling  the  image  of  its  first 
simplicity.  That  was  a  fair  shore,  bedecked  by  only 
Nature's  hand,  toward  which  our  eyes  are  ever  turn- 
ing back  regretfully  as  we  watch  it  fade  in  the 
distance." 

There  may  be,  nay,  I  think  there  must  be,  a  mean- 
ing and  a  moral  to  this  disgust  of  the  enlightened 
here  and  now,  this  longing  for  a  life  not  all  "  sick- 
lied o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought."  But  the 
interpretations  of  this  feeling  we  most  commonly 
meet  with  are  not  I  hope  to  be  taken  very  seriously, 
for  if  they  are,  there  is  no  counsel  for  us  but  one 
of  despair.  Thus,  whatever  could  come  of  the 
lament  for  the  good  old  days,  the  golden  days, 
before  science  had  done  this  or  that  to  cloud  our  first 
innocence?    No  history  written  in  such  ancient  times 

256 


PROGRESS 

but  that  it  can  recall  times  still  more  ancient  when 
things  went  better  with  the  sons  o£  the  gods  because 
then  they  knew  less.    And  it  is  still  open  to  any  one 

—  traveler,  philosopher,  poet  —  to  draw  what  pic- 
ture he  will  of  far  away  lands  wherein,  for  that  no- 
body wanted  very  much,  everybody  found  all  he 
wanted.  The  subject  of  this  sketch  may  vary  from 
Diogenes  snarling  in  his  tub  to  a  Typee  girl  dancing 
in  her  flowers^  from  the  desert  to  which  the  Chris- 
tian cenobites  withdrew  to  Tasso's  bosky  places, 
where,  before  that  vain  word  Onore  had  mingled 
its  grief  with  love, 

Sedean  pastori  e  ninfe, 
Meschiando  alle  parole 
Vezzi  e  susurri,  ed  ai  susurri  i  bad 
Strettamente  tenaci  .  .  . 

But  of  all  this,  nothing  is  serious,  nothing  sincere, 

—  of  all  those  who  lament  the  past  not  one  would 
take  the  first  step  toward  it,  so  little  is  it  in  man's 
nature  to  retreat.  Or  if  anyone  would,  yet  what 
could  he  do,  save  drag  his  own  sadness  into  the 
desert  with  him?  As  for  the  world,  it  must  even 
go  on  with  its  science,  though  it  be  but  the  science  of 
hurting  itself. 

Wherefore,  no  less  futile  than  regret  for  a  past 
we  cannot  recover,  is  fear  for  a  future  we  cannot 

257 


PROGRESS 

avert.  It  is  natural  that  certain  conditions  arising 
out  of  the  progress  of  science  should  make  gentle 
souls  anxious  for  what  is  to  come.  Science  is  power, 
and  as  no  man  can  commit  the  sins  he  is  impotent 
to  commit,  there  is  a  certain  safeguard  for  innocence 
in  ignorance.  Only  after  having  eaten  of  the  Tree 
of  Knowledge  did  our  first  parents  come  to  mourn 
outside  the  gates.  No  shepherds  and  shepherdesses 
conceived  the  iniquity  of  BabePs  tower,  and  Egypt 
and  great  Babylon  were  of  no  children's  dream- 
ing. Yet  must  man  go  on  gathering  unto  himself 
knowledge  with  all  its  power  for  harm  and  no  warn- 
ing gesture  of  the  fearful  can  stay  him.  Our  only 
comfort  can  be  that  however  great  a  power  for  harm 
science  may  bring,  it  ought  to  enhance  in  equal 
measure  the  power  for  good,  —  did  we  but  know 
what  good  and  evil  were. 

Did  we  but  know  good  and  evil!  In  the  sug- 
gestion that  perhaps  we  do  not,  in  the  suspicion 
that  this  is  just  the  knowledge  to  which  science  does 
not  help  us,  —  yes,  in  the  fear  that  it  is  science 
itself  which  throws  doubt  on  ethical  standards  —  is, 
I  conceive,  a  motive  for  deprecating  the  progress 
of  science  more  serious  than  the  others,  and  more 
sincere.  Science  is,  indeed,  endlessly  critical  j  no 
authority  of  tradition  or  of  general  acceptance  im- 
poses upon  it  J   nothing  for  it  is  finished,  nothing 

258 


PROGRESS 

fixed  j  and  to  those  to  whom  all  goodness  is  in  dan- 
ger the  moment  one  asks,  What  is  good?  science 
may  well  seem  a  dangerous  growth,  —  unhallowed 
in  its  origin,  curiosity  j  damnable  in  its  outcome,  un- 
rest. And  yet  if  as  we  assume  science  must  pro- 
gress, stayed  neither  by  regret  for  the  past  nor  by 
fear  for  the  future,  then  must  its  questioning  spirit 
invade  every  realm  of  opinion,  examine  the  most 
sacred  of  beliefs,  look  into  the  very  meaning  of 
good  and  evil. 

For  this  reason  we  did  well,  I  conceive,  to  begin 
a  consideration  of  progress  with  some  account  of 
the  skeptics.  Science  itself  cannot  quarrel  with  those 
who  meet  its  advances  with  the  question.  What  is 
the  good  of  you?  But  it  can  only  begin  its  answer 
by  asking  another,  What  do  you  take  to  be  good? 

What  do  you  take  to  be  good?  Evidently  there 
cannot  be  two  minds,  one  of  which  points  to  the 
advance  of  civilization  with  every  confidence  that 
it  means  the  world's  betterment,  the  other  conceiv- 
ing that  men  may  grow  wiser  and  none  the  better  for 
that,  unless  the  good  is  understood  by  them  in  dif- 
ferent senses.  What  are  these  two  meanings  tangled 
in  the  single  word,  —  the  good? 

It  is  this  question  that  Immanuel  Kant  has  stud- 
ied with  peculiar  care  and  thoughtfulness  in  his 

259 


PROGRESS 

ethical  writings,  and  there  he  has  made  a  distinction 
between  two  such  meanings  that  seems  very  much 
to  our  purpose.  The  first,  in  his  stiff  academic  way, 
he  calls  the  hypothetical  use.  Thus,  if  you  were  to 
enquire  what  would  be  the  best  thing  to  do  in  order 
to  attain  a  certain  object,  your  answer  would  recom- 
mend a  certain  procedure  as  "  good,"  certainly,  but 
good  only  on  the  hypothesis  that  such  and  such  is 
your  end.  Your  hypothetical  good  washes  its 
hands  of  any  responsibility  for  what,  if  anything, 
of  some  other  kind  of  good  or  evil  may  attach  to 
your  purpose  j  it  only  places  its  wits  at  your  disposal 
in  devising  the  best  means  to  this  end.  Is  your 
purpose  to  rob  a  bank?  —  Then  will  science  set 
itself  to  think  out  for  you  the  best  way  of  robbing 
a  bank.  After  that,  let  who  will  complain  that  bank- 
robbing  is  not  a  good  thing  to  set  about,  he  cannot 
deny  that  you  have  set  about  it  in  a  good  way. 

But  it  seemed  to  Kant,  as  I  suppose  it  would  to 
anyone,  that  we  do  not  restrict  ourselves  to  this 
hypothetical  use  of  the  term  good.  There  seems 
to  us  to  be  a  distinction  between  a  good  way  of 
thieving  and  a  way  of  being  good.  If  so,  must 
there  not  be  a  good  that  is  sought  for  its  own  sake 
and  not  merely  for  the  sake  of  what  it  may  lead 
to?  Is  there  not  a  categorical ^  an  absolute  good? 
And  surely  Kant  was  not  very  far  from  the  thought 

260 


PROGRESS 

of  all  of  us  when  he  sought  to  identify  this  absolute 
good  with  the  moral  good  and  with  the  object  of 
virtue.  Plainly  we  see  that  however  good  a  thief  a 
man  may  become,  he  does  not  increase  in  virtue  as 
he  advances  in  science.  And  have  we  not  here  come 
upon  the  ultimate  meaning  of  those  who  contend 
that,  let  the  world  advance  never  so  in  its  science, 
it  grows  no  whit  better?  Its  increase  is  altogether 
measured  in  those  hypothetical  goods  thanks  to 
which  the  thieves  of  today  are  indeed  better  thieves 
than  the  crude  ones  that  used  to  bej  but  as 
little  as  ever  do  they  know,  and  still  less  do  they 
care,  for  that  absolute  good,  that  moral  world,  to 
have  progressed  away  from  which  is  to  have  gone 
backward  indeed. 

What,  we  asked  of  the  critics  of  civilization,  do 
you  take  to  be  good?  And  setting  aside  those  who 
have  idly  answered.  It  was  good  when  the  world 
was  young,  before  Onor  "  bound  in  nets  the  tresses 
Zephyr  used  to  scatter,"  —  setting  aside  "  licentious 
poesy  "  we  have  found  the  answer  of  serious  men 
to  be.  The  world  will  only  be  good  when  it  has 
become  moral.  Not  the  growth  of  science,  but  the 
increase  in  morality  is  real  progress,  progress  toward 
the  absolute  good.  We  have  then  only  to  make 
plain  morality's  meaning  to  have  found  what  prog- 
ress is. 

261 


PROGRESS 

Morality  no  doubt  first  presents  itself  to  most  of 
us  as  a  set  of  laws  or  maxims  of  conduct  to  follow 
which  is  virtue.  These  laws  we  may  think  of  as 
delivered  unto  man  in  God's  own  voice,  and  carved 
upon  tables  of  stone.  Or,  if  our  image  of  their 
origin  and  authority  be  not  so  definite,  we  may  still 
find  moral  peace  in  the  thought  that  what  words  the 
still  small  voice  of  conscience  whispers  to  us  are  no 
less  God's  words.  They  are  what  Antigone  took 
them  to  be  — 

The  immutable  unwritten  law  of  Heaven. 

They  were  not  born  today  or  yesterday; 

They  die  not,  and  none  knoweth  whence  they  sprang. 

If  many  have  been  unable  to  keep  the  sweet 
moral  confidence  of  childhood  until  the  end,  it  is 
because  riper  experience  has  not  confirmed  to  them 
Antigone's  premises,  nor  mature  reflection  borne  out 
her  conclusions.  Do  they  not  die,  these  unwritten 
laws:  are  new  ones,  indeed,  never  born?  For  a 
little  searching  we  may  find  that  not  a  precept  marks 
a  virtue  for  one  people  at  one  time,  but  that  else- 
where or  elsewhen  its  ordinance  is  taken  to  be 
vicious.  And  conversely,  we  do  not  have  to  travel 
far  to  find  vice  turning  into  virtue.  Antigone's  own 
people  are  not  so  remote  from  us  as  the  Mingre- 
lians  and  Topinambouesj  we  owe  them  much  that 

262 


PROGRESS 

we  prize  most  in  our  culture,  and  would  be  proud  to 
match  them  in  more  ways  than  one.  And  yet,  con- 
sider their  admiration  in  the  way  of  a  man,  which, 
if  it  was  any  one,  was  surely  the  Wise  Ulysses. 
Now,  if  there  are  any  two  principles  of  Christian 
morals  more  firmly  planted  in  our  souls  than  others, 
they  are  the  maxims.  Be  truthful,  and.  Be  kind. 
But  was  Ulysses  truthful?  was  Ulysses  kind?  To 
leave  for  one's  unconquered  enemies  a  wooden 
horse  as  it  were  a  parting  token  may  be  an  inno- 
cent enough  thing  to  do,  however  pagan.  But  to 
make  of  this  wooden  horse  a  disguised  troop  ship  is 
not  within  the  strict  letter  of  truthfulness  3  and  to 
sally  forth  therefrom  to  slay  your  quondam  foes 
while  they  sleep  in  the  security  of  your  peace  does 
not  show  a  kindly  spirit.  Yet  it  does  not  appear 
that  the  Greek  gods  resented  any  more  than  did  the 
Greek  people  Ulysses^  cruel  craft:  all  of  which 
would  lead  one  to  suspect  that  the  unwritten  law  of 
peoples,  if  indeed  it  come  from  Heaven,  must  come 
from  only  that  part  of  it  which  is  directly  overhead 
at  the  time. 

But  let  time  and  place  be  never  so  circumscribed, 
and  men  never  so  in  accord  as  to  their  moral  maxims, 
are  these  maxims  at  least  consistent  with  one 
another?  Does  one  bid  us  be  truthful?  — then  an- 
other bids  us  be  kind!     But  how  in  this  vale  of 

263 


PROGRESS 

perplexities  is  one  always  to  be  truthful  yet  never 
unkind?  "  Yes  I  know,"  writes  an  old  gossip  of 
mine  and  fellow  philosopher,  "  I  know.  Morality 5 
Duty.  But  how  hard  it  is  to  discover  what  is  duty! 
I  assure  you  that  for  three  quarters  of  my  time  I 
do  not  know  where  duty  lies.  It  is  like  the  hedge- 
hog that  belonged  to  our  English  governess  at  Join- 
ville.  We  used  to  spend  the  evening  looking  for 
it  under  the  furniture,  and  when  we  had  found  it, 
it  was  time  to  go  to  bed."  ^ 

For  these  reasons,  most  have  abandoned  the  at- 
tempt to  define  the  moral  good  in  terms  of  maxims, 
which  they  take  rather  to  be  hypothetical  goods  in 
disguise.  They  are  rules  indeed,  but  only  rules  of 
thumb  holding  "  for  the  most  part."  If  they  vary 
with  the  time  and  place,  if  within  the  most  circum- 
scribed communities  they  contradict  one  another, 
this  is  because  they  cannot  pretend  to  be  good  in 
themselves,  but  are  only  the  means  which  the  com- 
munity accepting  them  has  found  by  experience  to 
be  best  fitted  for  attaining  a  certain  end.  It  is  in- 
deed the  end  that  justifies  the  means,  it  alone  is  the 
categorical  good,  and  the  whole  meaning  of  moral- 
ity is  to  be  sought  in  its  purpose. 

But  those  who,  like  David  Hume,  have  sought 
the  purpose  common  to  all  the  discordant  moral 

^  Anatole  France, 
264 


PROGRESS 

maxims  of  history,  have  found  it  not  in  some 
quality  this  purpose  might  be  assumed  to  have,  with- 
out question  of  him  whose  purpose  it  was.  No,  the 
moral  purpose  founds  its  right  to  have  all  other 
purposes  bow  to  it  on  nothing  but  the  authoritative 
position  of  the  one  that  has  chosen  this  purpose  as 
his.  Suppose,  with  Hume,  we  found  no  harmony 
in  the  moral  ordinances  of  all  the  many  peoples 
of  history  save  that  each  maxim  at  the  time  and 
under  the  conditions  of  its  acceptance  was  held  to 
serve  the  well-being  of  the  community.  Now 
communities  are  not  so  different  from  particular 
men  but  that  they  must,  like  men,  hold  their  well- 
being  to  lie  in  having  the  objects  of  their  desire 
accorded  to  them.  From  which  it  follows  that  to 
act  virtuously  is  to  make  your  will  conform  to  the 
will  of  the  community  to  which  you  belong.  Des- 
cartes has  somewhere  said  that  God  did  not  choose 
this  world  because  it  was  good,  but  the  world  is 
good  because  God  chose  it.  Just  so,  a  community 
does  not  choose  its  purpose  because  it  is  good,  but 
that  purpose  is  good  which  the  community  chooses. 
We  might  say  that,  not  the  good  will,  but  the  Good 
Wilier  is  morality's  last  word  on  the  subject  of  the 
categorical  good. 

Thus  it  would  seem  that  all  virtues  melt  into 
one,  and  that  one  is  what  the  late  Professor  Royce 

26s 


PROGRESS 

was  fond  of  calling  "  loyalty/'  the  devotion  of 
my  will  to  the  will  of  another.  I  am  aware  that 
not  just  any  other-will,  whosesoever  it  may  be,  is 
contemplated  by  moralists  as  a  fit  object  of  loyalty's 
devotion.  The  Other  to  whom  my  will  should  bow, 
if  I  would  be  moral,  is  generally  conceived  to  be 
more  numerous  than  I  (e.g.  the  majority),  or 
more  inclusive  (the  family,  the  state,  the  cause), 
or  in  some  sense  higher  (God).  In  short,  the  Other- 
will  is  taken  to  be,  in  one  way  or  another,  an  Over- 
will,  and  moralists  may  differ  widely  as  to  which 
one  of  several  conceivable  Over-wills  should  be 
recognized  as  the  Absolute.  But  for  the  purpose 
of  this  discussion,  one  illustration  of  moral  loyalty 
is  as  good  as  another,  for  the  difficulty  that  moral- 
ity has  found  in  making  good  its  claim  to  have  laid 
hold  on  the  absolute  good  lies  not,  I  conceive,  in 
deciding  which  Other-will  is  sovereign,  but  in  con- 
vincing a  man  that  he  ought  to  acknowledge  as  sov- 
ereign any  other  will  than  his  own.  One  who  is 
told  that  it  is  not  good  for  him  to  remain  captain 
of  his  soul  is  bound  to  ask.  Why  not?  It  is  moral- 
ity's way  of  dealing  with  this  why  that  I  would  con- 
sider in  an  example  which,  for  being  simple,  loses 
nothing  that  I  can  think  essential  to  the  issue. 

In  Thomas  Hobbes's  "  Leviathan,"  one  finds  an 

266 


PROGRESS 

account,  clear,  legalistic,  unsentimental,  of  the 
meaning  of  duty  interpreted  as  the  obligation  of 
your  will  and  mine  to  bow  to  a  Sovereign-will.  The 
title-page  of  the  first  edition  (1651)  of  this  work 
bears  the  image  of  a  man  of  heroic  size  whose  body 
is  made  up  of  little  men.  The  little  men  stand  for 
you  and  me,  the  big  man  is  Leviathan.  The  story 
of  the  generation  of  the  living  giant  made  up  of 
living  men  is  in  this  wise: 

"  Nature  it  seems  hath  made  men  so  equal  .  .  . 
as  though  there  be  found  one  man  manifestly 
stronger  in  body  or  quicker  in  mind  than  another, 
yet  when  all  is  reckoned  together  the  difference  be- 
tween man  and  man  is  not  so  considerable  as  that 
one  man  can  therefore  claim  to  himself  any  benefit 
to  which  another  man  may  not  pretend  as  well  as 
he.  .  .  .  From  this  equality  of  ability  arises 
equality  of  hope  in  attaining  of  our  ends.  And 
therefore  if  any  two  men  desire  the  same  thing, 
they  become  enemies,  and  in  the  way  to  their  end 
.  .  .  endeavor  to  destroy  or  subdue  one  an- 
other. .  .  .  From  this  diffidence  of  one  another, 
there  is  no  way  for  any  man  to  secure  himself  so 
reasonable  as  anticipation  j  that  is,  by  force  or  wiles 
to  master  the  persons  of  all  the  men  he  can,  so  long 
till  he  see  no  other  power  great  enough  to  endanger 
him.    .    •    • 

267 


PROGRESS 

"  Hereby  is  manifest  that  during  the  time  men 
live  without  a  common  power  to  keep  them  all  in 
awe,  they  are  in  that  condition  which  is  called  war, 
and  such  a  war  as  is  of  all  against  all.  ...  In 
Guch  condition  there  is  no  place  for  industry,  because 
the  fruit  thereof  is  uncertain,  ...  no  arts,  no 
letters,  no  society,  and,  what  is  worst  of  all,  contin- 
ued fear  and  danger  of  violent  death,  and  the  life 
of  man  solitary,  poor,  nasty,  brutish  and  short.  .  .  . 

"  And  consequently,  it  is  a  precept,  or  general 
rule  of  reason,  that  every  man  ought  to  endeavor 
feace^  as  jar  as  he  has  hofe  of  obtaining  it;  and  when 
}ie  cannot  obtain  it,  that  he  may  seek  and  use  all 
helfs  and  advantages  of  war.  .  .  .  From  this 
fundamental  law  of  nature,  by  which  men  are 
commended  to  endeavor  peace,  is  derived  this  sec- 
ond law  J  that  a  man  be  willing  when  others  are  so 
tooy  as  far  forth  as  for  feace  and  defence  of  him- 
self he  shall  think  it  necessary y  to  lay  down  this 
right  to  all  things,  and  be  contented  with  so  much 
liberty  against  other  m^en  as  he  would  allow  other 
men  against  himself,^* 

Thus  "  the  final  cause,  end,  or  design  of  men, 
who  naturally  love  liberty  and  dominion  over  others, 
in  the  introduction  of  restraint  upon  themselves  in 
which  we  see  them  live  in  commonwealths,  is  the 
foresight  of  their  own  preservation,  and  of  a  more 

268 


PROGRESS 

contented  life  thereby  5  that  is  to  say,  of  getting 
themselves  out  from  the  condition  of  war,  which  is 
necessarily  consequent  to  the  natural  passions  of 
men  when  there  is  no  visible  power  to  keep  them 
in  awe  and  tie  them  by  fear  of  punishment  to  the 
performance  of  their  covenants." 

Now  "  the  only  way  to  erect  such  a  common 
power  ...  is  to  confer  all  their  power  and 
strength  upon  one  man  or  upon  an  assembly  of 
men  that  may  reduce  all  their  wills  .  .  .  unto 
one  will,  .  .  .  which  is  as  much  as  to  say,  to 
appoint  one  man  or  an  assembly  of  men  to  bear 
their  person,  and  every  one  to  own  and  acknowledge 
himself  to  be  author  of  whatsoever  he  that  so  beareth 
their  person  shall  act  ...  in  those  things  which 
concern  the  common  peace  and  safety  j  and  therein 
submit  their  wills  every  one  to  his  will,  and  their 
judgments  to  his  judgment.  .  .  .  This  done,  the 
multitude  so  united  in  one  person  is  called  a  Com- 
monwealth, in  Latin,  Civitas.  This  is  the  genera- 
tion of  that  great  Leviathan,  or  rather,  to  speak 
more  reverently,  of  that  mortal  god  to  which  we 
owe  under  immortal  God  our  peace  and  defence." 

Seldom  has  the  "  generation "  of  an  Absolute 
been  so  clearly  set  forth.  We  do  not  suppose,  any 
more  than  Hobbes  himself  did,  that  this  word  "  gen- 
eration "  has  any  historical  significance.    Men  never 

269 


PROGRESS 

lived  in  the  state  of  nature  here  defined,  they  never 
foregathered  to  reason  out  in  this  way  the  advis- 
ability of  organizing  themselves  into  common- 
wealths. Instead  of  "  generation,"  read,  if  you  will, 
"  justification,"  i.e.,  the  justification  in  reason  for 
the  commonwealth's  existence  and  dominion.  Then 
observe  that  not  only  does  this  great  loyalist  (the 
whole  Leviathan  is  one  of  the  loyalist  documents  of 
the  Civil  Wars)  —  not  only  does  he  demand  a  rea- 
son for  the  loyal  faith  that  is  in  him,  but  in  the  de- 
velopment of  this  reason  it  turns  out  that  the 
absolute  is  not  another  will  at  ally  but  only  one's  own 
will  thoughtfully  dealing  with  others  to  win  for  it- 
self a  "  more  contented  life." 

Now  of  course  it  is  an  absurdity  to  try  to  give  a 
reason  why  any  will  whatever  should  be  taken  for 
absolute  and  expect  to  keep  it  so^  for  the  very  func- 
tion of  this  reason  is  to  show  what  more  ultimate 
end  is  served  by  acknowledging  this  will  as  master. 
But  if  we  do  follow  Hobbes's  reason  for  bowing  as 
deep  as  we  do  bow  to  Leviathan,  this  reason  is  that 
our  own  deepest  desire  —  or  what  Hobbes  takes  to 
be  such  —  is  thereby  best  served.  "  For  it  is,"  says 
he,  "a  voluntary  actj  and  of  the  voluntary  acts  of 
every  man,  the  object  is  some  good  to  himself." 

Why  then,  that  morality  which  promised  to  give 
us  a  meaning  of  the  good  that  would  enable  us  to 

270 


PROGRESS 

understand  how  the  progress  of  science  with  its  hy- 
pothetical goods  might  let  us  stray  from  or  even 
lead  us  away  from  the  good,  has  turned  out  to  be 
itself  offering  us  a  hypothetical  good,  to  he  itself  an 
effort  of  science y  —  the  science  of  many  wills  meet- 
ing in  presence  of  but  a  single  world.  And  this  I  take 
to  be  the  fate,  not  only  of  Hobbes's  but  of  all 
moralities :  differ  as  they  may  respecting  that  Other- 
will  they  take  to  be  absolute,  they  all  alike  recom- 
mend a  sacrifice  of  my  will  to  another  will,  not 
indeed  for  the  sacrifice'  sake,  nor  yet  for  that  other 
will's  sake  when  all  is  said,  but  that  my  own  will 
may  find  "  a  more  contented  life  thereby." 

Most  of  us  have  let  our  thoughts  respecting  the 
good  of  life  stop  with  the  acceptance  of  those  moral 
goods  that  the  opinion  of  our  time  takes  to  be 
absolute.  These  standard  objects  of  loyalty,  the 
state,  the  hearth,  the  cause,  we  serve  with  devotion 
and  to  them  make  our  sacrifice.  It  is  natural  we 
should  look  with  distrust,  even  with  hostility,  upon 
those  who  have  let  their  thought  go  further  and 
have  asked.  How  in  serving  these  Other-wills  is 
our  own  deeper  desire  the  better  fulfilled?  And 
yet,  if  our  analysis  is  so  far  correct,  this  is  the  most 
intelligent,  the  most  dignified  of  questions j  for  no 
historic  morality  has  really  meant  to  present  itself 

271 


PROGRESS 

as  a  system  of  sacrifices  with  no  corresponding 
satisfactions. 

But  if  we  ask  of  the  current  morality  of  loyalty, 
What  is  the  greater  contentment  bought  by  each  of 
us  at  the  price  of  the  sacrifices  we  make  in  loyalty's 
name?  we  come  upon  serious  matters  for  reflection. 
There  have  been  those  who  maintain  that  current 
morality  cannot  meet  the  demands  of  intelligence, 
and  as  there  are  two  ways  in  which  in  buying  a  thing 
for  a  price  one  may  drive  an  unprofitable  bargain, 
so  there  are  two  critics  of  current  morality.  The 
one  thinks  the  price  morality  asks  too  high  j  the  other 
esteems  the  thing  bought  of  no  value.  Let  me  call 
the  one  the  Reforming  Moralist;  the  other  the 
Amoralist, 

Now  the  reward  morality  holds  out  to  all  who 
make  sacrifice  to  it  is  some  ideal  of  peace,  whether 
it  be  peace  on  earth  and  good  will  among  men,  or 
that  peace  which  passeth  understanding.  Our  re- 
forming moralist  then  holds  fast  to  the  ideal  of 
peace  as  the  deepest  of  human  desires,  but  questions 
whether  current  morality  in  its  uncritical  acceptance 
of  traditional  loyalties  has  found  the  most  intelli- 
gent, i.e.,  the  least  sacrificial  way  of  peace.  Thus  if 
he  is  not  blind  to  the  citizen-peace  that  comes  from 
living  in  Commonwealths  to  whose  Over-will  we 
particular  men  make  our  loyal  sacrifices,  neither  will 

272 


PROGRESS 

he  accept  such  nationalism  as  refuses  to  sanction  cov- 
enants of  nation  with  nation  to  the  establishment  of 
their  more  peaceful,  if  less  autonomous,  relations. 
He  sees  in  that  group-will  we  call  the  national-will 
but  an  historic  device  for  improving  the  conditions 
of  private  life.  He  sees  nothing  but  unreformed, 
that  is,  atavistic  and  stupid  morality  in  such  national- 
ism as  would  make  the  autonomy  of  the  state  an  end 
in  itself  to  which  private  life  must  forever  yield  its 
contentment.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  he  would 
say  with  Remy  de  Gourmont  — 

"  The  life  of  nations,  of  groups,  of  individuals  is 
one  struggle  against  morality.  Man  pushes  on  to- 
ward liberty,  and  can  accept  only  such  discipline 
as  assures  him  at  the  cost  of  temporary  subjection 
a  more  agreeable  and  more  complete  exercise  of  this 
supreme  good.  All  discipline  that  is  not  founded  in 
liberty  is  caduque,  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that 
civilization  has  always  succeeded  in  surmounting 
systems  of  morals."  ^ 

But  if  our  reforming  moralist  acknowledges  the 
supreme  value  of  peace  and  would  only  make  the 
pursuit  of  it  more  intelligent,  our  amoralist  denies 
that  the  human  heart  can  ever  rest  in  peace  or  even 
really  wants  to.    Peace,  if  it  were  complete,  would 

^  The  meaning  and  value  of  "  loyalty  "  is  more  fully  dis- 
cussed in  Chap.  X,  on  "  Love  and  Loyalty." 

273 


PROGRESS 

mean  stagnation,  will-less  apathy,  that  ennui  of  life 
Schopenhauer  judges  to  be  worse  than  any  misery 
the  war  of  aggressive  wills  can  engender.  In  the 
Nietzschian  man-of-might  our  amoralist  sees  his 
ideal,  a  will  that  knows  no  Over-will,  acknowledges 
no  loyalty,  but  whose  motto  is  "  Weltmacht  oder 
Untergang."  For  him,  life  shall  at  least  know 
nothing  of  ennui,  no  static  stagnant  peace,  no 
Nirvana. 

Thus  if  we  approach  in  an  historian's  spirit  the 
attempt  to  think  out  the  world-desirable  to  make  for 
which  is  to  progress  in  the  only  sense  the  word  can 
have,  we  find  humanity  divided  between  those  who 
desire  peace  and  those  who  want  war. 

On  behalf  of  peace  the  moralist  points  not  alone 
to  the  misery  war  brings  to  the  vanquished,  not  alone 
to  its  cost  to  the  victor  and  to  the  vanity  of  his 
ephemeral  winnings  j  but  to  that  utter  loneliness 
which  the  war  of  all  upon  all  makes  the  only  lasting 
portion  of  each.  A  solitude  of  struggle,  without 
one  to  cheer  the  effort,  without  one  to  share  the  joy 
(if  joy  it  can  then  be  called)  of  triumph  —  can 
any  human  heart  endure,  let  alone  desire  war? 

But  the  amoralist,  full  of  the  certaminis  gaudiay 
turns  in  disgust  from  the  hopeless  state  of  the  peace- 
ful who  having  nothing  more  to  fear  can  have  noth- 
ing left  to  hope  for.     Our  longing  for  peace  is  an 

274 


PROGRESS 

illusion  of  certain  moments  of  war-weariness,  but  a 
picture  of  eternal  peace,  stagnant,  ambitionless,  dead 
—  and  yet  not  dead  enough  —  who  could  endure 
it,  who  could  really  desire  peace? 

Lonely  ambition  —  peaceful  acquiescence  in  a 
common  lot!  The  history  of  human  relations  is  a 
struggle,  more  often  than  not  a  compromise  between 
these  ideals.  There  is  enough  inspiring  in  each 
to  make  any  man  of  understanding  long  for 
it,  there  is  enough  repulsive  in  each  to  turn  any 
thoughtful  soul  against  it.  Wherefore  the  grue- 
some spectacle  of  world  war  is  but  the  outward  and 
visible  sign  of  the  struggle  that  goes  on  every  silent 
moment  within  the  heart  of  each,  as  the  volcano  is 
but  the  overt  violence  of  long  sullen  rumblings  that 
have  gone  before.  And  so  things  must  last  if  and 
so  long  as  we  really  want  two  irreconcilable  ideals: 
compromise  must  follow  makeshift,  war  must 
punctuate  peace,  world  without  end. 

Into  a  world  so  distraught  comes  that  child  of 
God,  that  messenger  of  heaven,  the  modest  philoso- 
pher. His  cheerful  gospel  is  that  all  men's  ills  are 
curable  by  taking  thought,  that  men  suffer  only  for 
their  false  philosophy.  Now,  of  all  philosophies 
none  is  so  false  as  that  which  pretends  one  cannot 
have  his  penny  and  his  cake.    True  it  may  be  in  the 

275 


PROGRESS 

letter  that  I  cannot  keep  a  certain  copper  in  my 
pocket  and  honestly  entice  a  sweet-meat  out  of  the 
baker's  window.  But  I  must  be  a  sorry  philosopher  if 
I  cannot  keep  all  the  potentiality  of  future  enjoy- 
ment the  penny  stands  for,  and  yet  have  all  the 
actual  satisfaction  I  happen  for  the  moment  to  vis- 
ualize in  the  form  of  cake.  Or  to  put  the  thought 
in  less  poetic  and  more  general  terms,  the  heart  that 
thinks  itself  torn  by  conflicting  desires  owes  its 
plight  to  the  failure  of  its  imagination  to  realize 
that  only  the  formulas  in  which  it  has  so  far  ex- 
pressed its  desires  are  in  contradiction  3  the  desires 
themselves  may  well  enough  be  reconciled  in  a 
larger  world-view. 

Take  our  present  problem  for  example.  It  is 
impossible,  you  say,  that  I  should  deny  the  ambition 
to  conquer  for  the  sake  of  the  love  of  my  neighbor 
without  killing  what  is  most  vital  in  myself.  And 
it  is  equally  impossible  that  I  should  give  play  to 
my  ambition  to  conquer  without  losing  my  neigh- 
bor's love  and  living  a  lonely  struggle.  These 
things  are  indeed  impossible  in  the  world  to  which 
the  imagination  of  the  past  has  been  fettered,  —  this 
little  finite  earth  the  fulness  whereof  is  so  easily 
emptied.  If  to  have  all  that  I  can  win  of  such 
meagre  fulness  is  the  only  meaning  I  can  give  to 
ambition,  either  I  must  kill  ambition  and  love  my 

276 


PROGRESS 

neighbor  across  a  fence,  or  I  must  tear  down  the 
fence  and  kill  my  neighbor.  But  what  if  the  fault 
of  all  this  lay  not  with  the  darkness  of  reality,  but 
with  the  blindness  of  untrained  imagination?  What 
if  we  could  set  before  ambition  a  boundless  prospect, 
so  that  never,  far  as  conquest  might  reach,  could 
it  find  cause  to  weep  for  lack  of  more  to  conquer? 
What  if,  in  the  very  conquering  of  such  a  world, 
the  gain  of  one,  so  far  from  being  another's  loss, 
were  the  equal  spoil  of  all,  yes,  and  a  weapon  forged 
to  the  hand  of  all  for  new  victories?  Wherefore 
then  should  ambition  yield  or  love  be  denied? 

But  perhaps  you  will  say,  this  is  but  an  imagining 
and  a  dream.  Our  humdrum  world,  the  only  real 
one,  offers  no  such  object  of  ambition  j  and  if  it  did, 
our  nature,  just  human  nature,  is  not  such  as  could 
understand,  still  less  be  fascinated  and  inspired  by  it. 

Does  it  sound  ridiculous  to  say  that  our  world 
is  one  that  holds  out  just  such  a  prospect  to  all  who 
will  but  see?  Aye,  and  that  many  a  human  eye  has 
seen,  and  having  seen  remained  single  to  this  vision? 
I  will  call  the  promised  land  the  Kingdom  of  Na- 
ture Subdued:  I  will  call  the  vision  the  Vision  of 
Science. 

In  the  beginning,  Man  was  Nature's  creature  and 
her  plaything.     Sometimes  she  seems  to  have  f on- 

277 


PROGRESS 

died  her  toy  and  been  good  to  it,  given  it  pleasant 
places  to  dwell  in  and  let  the  light  of  her  counte- 
nance shine  upon  it.  Those  who  think  only  of  these 
rare  moments  may  sing,  O  bella  eta  dell'  oro!  O 
Paradise  J  O  Paradise!  They  forget  how  rare  were 
these  moments  and  how  capriciously  bestowed. 
Elsewhere  were  many  griefs  of  which  man  could 
not  so  much  as  guess  the  reason,  and  if  he  dared 
raise  his  questioning  gaze  to  God  he  was  mocked  for 
his  impotence  and  nothingness :  "  Where  wast  thou 
when  I  laid  the  foundation  of  the  earth?  declare, 
if  thou  hast  understanding." 

But  need  makes  for  perspicuity.  Time  passed, 
and  some  few  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  vision  of 
science  j  caught  it,  widened  it,  brightened  it  and 
passed  it  on.  Perhaps  their  lives  were  not  very 
happy  in  a  world  where  they  were  much  alone  5  but 
it  is  easier  to  tell  of  their  ostensible  hardships  than 
of  their  enthusiasms  —  who  knows  but  that  even 
they  found  here  their  compt?  Time  went  on,  and 
that  Nature  which  had  begun  by  being  so  cruel  and 
capricious  a  mistress  became  through  man's  science 
more  and  more  his  slave.  Human  eyes  were  not 
so  often  turned  to  the  gods  in  supplication.  A  Greek 
slave  rang  out  to  his  fellows,  "  Why  call  ye  upon 
the  gods?     Ye  have  hands?    Wipe  your  own  nose." 

The  earth  yields  3  step  by  step  death  itself  gives 

278 


PROGRESS 

ground  j  and  shall  we  think  of  the  stars  only  to  fear 
them  and  to  read  our  fate  in  them?  Shall  they  for- 
ever whisper  to  us  their  old  taunting  questions: 
"  Canst  thou  bind  the  sweet  influences  of  the  Plei- 
ades, or  loose  the  bands  of  Orion?  Canst  thou  bring 
forth  Mazaroth  in  his  season?  or  canst  thou  guide 
Arcturus  with  his  sons?  Knowest  thou  the  ordinances 
of  heaven?  canst  thou  set  the  dominion  thereof  on 
the  earth?  "  —  And  shall  we  always  answer,  Alas! 

But  I  am  dreaming  a  dream.  Is  it  though  so  ill 
a  thing  to  dream,  if  one  docs  not  forget  how  to 
laugh  the  while?  Yes,  I  know,  the  stars  are  rather 
big  for  our  frail  hands  to  play  with  even  as  all 
Nature  once  played  with  us.  But  how  else  am  I  to 
say  that  there  is  nothing  in  Nature  that  can  forever 
resist  the  onward  march  of  science?  What  else  am 
I  to  say  when  the  same  master  equations  hold  in 
heaven  as  on  the  earth,  and  Arcturus  with  all  his 
sons  is  but  a  falling  pebble  painted  large? 

Let  us  dream  then  and  laugh  with  Aesop  at  his 
frog.  It  is  certain  that  neither  our  laughter  nor 
our  dreams  can  hurt  our  wise  neighbor  very  much, 
and  if  we  go  the  toilsome  way  toward  the  conquest 
we  dream  of,  he  or  one  that  comes  after  may  some- 
time look  back  on  us  and  say.  Yes,  that  was  Progress. 
The  measure  of  man^s  cooperation  with  man  in  the 
conqiiest  of  nature  measures  progress, 

279 


X 

ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND 
LOYALTY 

A  Footnote  in  Illustration 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

[Something  we  had  to  say,  in  clarifying  the  thought 
of  Kant,  of  a  quality  of  human  love  that  holds  its 
object  single  and  unique.  And  again,  in  estimating 
the  part  played  by  morality  in  the  ideal  of  progress, 
we  had  occasion  to  remark  the  unwillingness  of 
some  to  admit  the  finality  of  those  sacrifices  loyalty 
calls  for. 

These  matters  are  not  so  simple  but  that  history, 
in  dealing  with  them,  shows  sharp  discord  where 
it  does  not  uncover  sheer  confusion.  The  love  that 
sets  its  heart  on  one  has  been  held  the  highest;  it 
has  also  been  put  the  lowest  of  all  loves.  Loyalty 
that  lives  on  sacrifice  has  been  prized  as  an  enduring 
condition  of  all  worth  3  it  has  not  escaped  disparage- 
ment as  a  human  makeshift.  Above  all,  "  love  " 
and  "  loyalty  "  are  so  mixed  in  men's  minds  that, 
although  any  pair  of  lovers  could  tell  a  service  of 
love  from  a  servitude  to  loyalty,  philosophers  can- 
not always. 

The  brief  discussion  that  follows  seemed  to  the 
writer  to  illustrate  a  difficulty  it  may  not  have  re- 
moved.   He  considered  that  it  could  not  lack  point 

283 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

for  those  who  in  foregoing  passages  on  love  and 
loyalty  have  found  themselves  more  involved  than 
enlightened.  For  the  rest,  it  has  seemed  best  to 
leave  this  "  footnote "  in  the  form  and  wording 
its  original  occasion  inspired.^] 

One  who  like  me  has  gone  to  Royce  for  wisdom 
now  this  long  time  and  never  come  away  empty, 
may  yet  live  to  know  that  some  of  his  receivings 
are  more  his  belongings  than  others.  Thus,  if  it 
ever  happen  to  me  that  I  find  my  hold  on  the 
^  Absolute '  slackening  and  the  thing  slipping  from 
me,  I  cannot  think  that  even  in  that  day  I  shall 
have  forgotten  two  words  I  have  heard.  Love  and 
loyalty,  loyalty  and  love:  this  pair  I  expect  will 
still  be  singing  its  burden  in  my  soul  after  other 
things  have  left  off  singing  there.  But  I  hope  that 
when  this  day  comes  I  shall  know  better  than  I  do 
now  whether  love  and  loyalty  are  two  names  for 
the  same  thing;  or  whether  they  are  not  the  same, 
yet  brothers  and  friends  j  or  whether  in  the  end  they 

^  The  paper  on  "  Love  and  Loyalty  "  was  written  for  the 
American  Philosophical  Association  at  its  Philadelphia  meeting 
m  191 5.  The  occasion  was  peculiarly  dedicated  to  Royce  in 
honor  of  his  sixtieth  birthday.  The  author's  thanks  are  due  to 
Professor  J.  E.  Creighton  for  his  courteous  permission  to  re- 
print from  the  Philosophical  Review,  XXV,  3,  and  from  the 
volume  "Papers  in  Honor  of  Josiah  Royce,  etc.,"   1922. 

284 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

are  not  rather  enemies,  of  which  one  can  survive 
only  if  the  other  doesn't.  Nor  do  I  know,  though 
I  should  very  much  like  to,  how  Royce  himself 
would  answer  these  questions.  Sometimes  the  words 
fall  in  such  close  juxtaposition  in  his  writings  that 
I  wonder  whether  they  do  not  express  a  single  idea 
whose  peculiar  quality  is  just  unselfishness.  But 
again  I  bethink  me  that  to  be  just  unselfish  is  not 
enough  for  an  absolutist,  if  for  anyone  j  that  giv- 
ing up  can  only  be  justified  when  it  is  a  means  of 
acquiring  j  and  I  wonder  what  loyalty  can  have  to 
say  for  itself  half  as  convincing  as  the  things  love 
could  point  to.  Until  at  last  I  find  myself  speculat- 
ing whether  if  love  had  its  perfect  way  with  us  there 
would  be  any  place  left  for  loyalty  in  our  lives,  and 
whether  we  could  not  look  back  on  it  then  as  on  a 
virtue  happily  outlived. 

And  this  may  be  my  matter  in  a  nutshell  —  is  not 
loyalty  a  thing  to  be  outlived,  and  is  not  that  which 
alone  can  enable  us  to  live  it  down  a  love  so  perfect 
it  calls  for  no  sacrifices?  Some  such  thought  has 
long  been  with  me,  but  if  I  am  to  lay  my  troubles 
before  you,  it  is  time  I  put  aside  a  language  too  rich 
in  sentimental  associations  and  took  up  the  idiom  I 
love  best,  that  of  cold  and,  if  may  be,  mathematical 
definition. 


28s 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Any  definition  of  loyalty  that  could  have  meaning 
for  me  must  assume  the  existence  of  something 
many  deny  to  have  either  existence  or  meaning,  and 
which  I  shall  call  in  my  own  way  the  mind  of  a 
group,  or  a  group  mind.  The  conception  of  a  mind 
belonging  to  a  group  of  beings  each  one  of  which 
has  a  mind  of  its  own,  yet  such  that  the  mind  of 
the  group  is  no  more  to  be  known  from  a  study  of 
its  parts  than  is  the  mentality  of  Peter  from  the 
psychology  of  Paul,  is  a  very  old  conception  and 
perhaps  for  that  reason  supposed  by  some  to  be  old- 
fashioned  and  out-worn.  It  is  a  mere  analogy,  they 
say,  and  a  very  thin  one  at  that,  to  speak  of  a  group 
of  organisms  as  itself  an  organism  j  it  is  Plato,  it  is 
Cusanus,  if  you  will,  but  it  is  not  modern.  Bene- 
detto Croce  even  goes  so  far  as  to  be  polite  about 
the  matter.  "  The  State,"  he  writes,  "  is  not  an 
entity,  but  a  fluid  complex  of  various  relations 
among  individuals.  It  may  be  convenient  to  delimit 
this  complex  and  to  entify  it  for  the  sake  of  con- 
trasting it  with  other  complexes.  No  doubt  this  is 
soj  but  let  us  leave  to  the  jurist  the  excogitation 
of  this  and  the  like  distinctions  —  fictions,  but  op- 
portune fictions  —  being  careful  not  to  call  his  work 
absurd.  It  is  enough  for  us  to  be  sure  we  do  not 
forget  that  a  fiction  is  a  fiction." 

To  Royce  the  group  mind  is  far  from  being  a 

286 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

fiction,  though  he  may  prefer  to  call  it  by  some  other 
name  than  group  mind  —  maybe  universal  mind  or 
universal  will.  But  if  to  him  it  seems  natural,  as 
it  does  to  me,  to  recognize  group  minds,  while  to 
Croce  the  entity  is  but  a  polite  fiction  to  be  pleas- 
antly dismissed,  there  must  be  some  lack  of  defi- 
nition befogging  our  issue.  Nor  can  I  think  of  any 
way  in  which  old  issues  can  better  be  made  clear 
than  by  recalling  old  images. 

Aristotle  would  not  have  asked  when  and  where 
do  new  entities  appear,  but  where  and  when  must 
we  take  account  of  new  forms.  Now  matter  was 
informed  for  Aristotle  when  the  behavior  of  some 
class  of  beings  was  recognized  to  be  predictable  in 
terms  of  purpose.  Thus  earth,  water,  air  and  fire 
sought  their  proper  places,  one  below,  another  above, 
and  the  others  in  between.  But  we  remember  how 
no  sooner  had  these  elements  reached  their  proper 
places  than,  transformed  by  the  sun's  heat,  they 
were  no  longer  at  home  where  they  found  them- 
selves, but  must  needs  seek  their  new  homes  anew. 
Thus  homeward  bound  in  opposite  directions,  they 
collided  and  became  entangled,  so  that  mixtures  of 
the  four  appeared,  which,  as  it  proved,  kept  their 
proportions  for  a  longer  or  shorter  while  ere  they 
lost  their  equilibrium  and  fell  apart  again.  Among 
these  mixtures  were  vegetables  and  animals  and  men, 

287 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

but  Aristotle  is  very  far  from  defining  this  new 
class,  organisms,  in  terms  of  the  quantities  of  the 
elements  that  enter  into  their  bodily  composition. 
No,  what  they  have  in  common  and  all  they  have 
in  common  is  a  new  purpose,  that  of  self-preserva- 
tion (and,  if  we  are  to  follow  Aristotle  rigorously, 
that  of  type-preservation).  But  why  in  this  class  of 
beings  does  a  new  form  appear  when  there  is  nothing 
in  any  one  of  them  but  so  much  earth,  so  much  water 
and  so  much  of  the  rest?  Because,  I  take  it,  in 
order  that  the  purpose  of  the  group  may  be  realized, 
the  purpose  of  each  constituent  of  that  group  must 
be  defeated:  when  the  earth  in  us  finds  its  way 
back  to  earth  and  our  fire  to  fire,  then  we  are  no 
more.  Which  is  the  fundamental  difference  between 
us  and  them:  if  we  win  they  lose 5  if  they  win  we 
are  done  for.  The  whole  has  a  purpose  whose  real- 
ization is  only  possible  if  the  purposes  defining  the 
parts  are  given  up  for  it. 

I  suppose  Croce  would  say  that  nothing  better 
could  be  offered  in  support  of  a  modern  fiction  than 
an  ancient  fable  5  and  I  confess  that  I  can  think  of 
nothing  better  fitted  to  set  forth  the  complex  prob- 
lem of  how  beings  of  one  mind  can  combine  to  form 
groups  of  another  mind,  than  Aristotle's  account 
of  the  way  elements  in  the  form  of  mechanism  com- 
bine to  produce  a  group  with  that  other  form,  life. 

288 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Perhaps  I  can  make  out  the  connection  between  old 
and  new  ideas  by  a  single  example.  I  know  of  no 
fellow  easier  to  get  along  with  than  your  average 
Parisian:  many  a  time  have  I  sat  at  his  board, 
looked  in  his  eyes,  listened  to  his  amusing  wit  and 
wondered  how  the  great-grandfather  of  my  host 
could  have  been  part  of  the  Reign  of  Terror.  And 
yet  I  suppose  the  Parisian  of  today  is  not  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  Parisian  of  four  generations  ago, 
when  groups  of  these  same  Parisians  were  ranging 
the  streets  of  Paris  crying,  "  A  la  lanterne !  "  How- 
ever much  it  was  in  the  character  of  the  Pierre,  Paul, 
Jean  and  Jacques  Bonhomme  of  those  old  days  to 
steer  for  home,  their  distributive  tendency  was  con- 
tradicted by  their  collective  tendency.  A  new  form, 
a  new  entity  had  appeared  3  it  was  the  spirit  of  the 
mob.  It  may  be  pleasant  to  call  such  new  entities 
fictions  j  but  it  would  be  a  most  dangerous  fiction  to 
suppose  pleasant  men  made  pleasant  mobs. 

I  must  let  this  single  illustration  take  the  place 
of  what  might  at  some  other  time  grow  into  a  sys- 
tematic account  of  the  varieties  of  group  minds  that 
history  and  personal  experience  reveal  to  us.  For 
my  world  is  highly  organized  —  groups  within 
groups  and  groups  within  these  in  a  way  one  might 
have  learned  at  the  feet  of  Nicolaus  or  by  gathering 
one's  history  from  Gierke's  "  Geschichte  des  Deut- 

289 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

schen  Rechts."  But  on  this  occasion,  instead  of  go- 
ing into  all  this  literature  and  all  this  philosophy, 
let  me  come  back  to  the  matter  of  loyalty's  worth. 
There  would  be  no  such  thing  as  a  demand  for 
loyalty  were  there  no  call  for  a  man  to  deny  his 
wish  for  home  —  whether  home  be  on  earth  or  on 
high  for  him  —  for  the  sake  of  organizing  himself 
into  a  group  j  which  means,  as  we  have  seen,  sacri- 
ficing his  purpose  for  the  group  purpose.  Now, 
what  you  think  of  the  value  of  this  sacrifice  depends 
altogether  on  the  esteem  in  which  you  hold  group 
minds.  If  you  can  find  some  principle  on  which  to 
estimate  their  dignity  as  something  worth  dying  for 
in  part  or  altogether,  then  loyalty  may  be  the  last 
word  of  virtue.  But  if  you  find  that  at  their  very 
best  there  is  something  rather  primitive,  sometimes 
amoeboid,  sometimes  tigerish  about  such  minds,  then 
you  should  seriously  consider  whether  your  biped 
soul  owes  anything  more  to  this  polypod  entity  than 
the  entity  owes  to  it.  Merging  oneself  into  some- 
thing big  may  not  be  just  the  same  as  reaching  for 
something  high. 

But  I  am  not  belittling  loyalty.  It  is  a  great 
virtue  so  long  as  it  understands  itself  to  be  making 
a  virtue  of  necessity.  Just  so  is  it  a  great  virtue  to 
acquire  equanimity  in  the  face  of  death,  in  such  wise 

290 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

that  not  being  able  to  invent  a  way  of  getting  around 
the  thing  one  may  accept  it  for  the  time  being  with- 
out disturbing  oneself  or  one's  friends  more  than 
the  episode  calls  for.  Still,  if  I  had  some  genius 
to  spend,  I  should  rather  contribute  it  to  the  sup- 
pression of  dying  than  to  the  cultivation  of  a  cheer- 
ful manner  in  dying.  So  should  I  rather  spend  my 
time,  if  it  were  worth  while,  in  wearing  away  the 
conditions  that  make  loyalty  necessary  than  in  devel- 
oping a  spirit  of  loyalty.  And  so,  or  I  mistake  him, 
would  Royce;  for  I  can  not  get  over  the  impression 
that  for  him,  too,  loyalty  is  but  a  half-way  house 
on  the  road  to  something  better  —  which  something 
better  is  love. 

It  is  with  relief  I  find  a  definition  of  love  can 
be  effected  which  makes  no  very  heavy  demands 
upon  one's  sentimental  experience^  in  fact,  requires 
no  more  in  that  way  than  a  fair  understanding  of 
the  theory  of  substitutions.  For  the  peculiar  quality 
Royce  finds  in  the  idea  of  love  is  that  love  individ- 
uates. This  its  quality  is  for  him  its  virtue  also  and 
its  excellence,  so  that  the  more  love  individuates 
the  more  is  it  love.  We  are  far  enough  from  the 
days  when  a  Plato  could  hold  the  love  to  be  higher 
that  had  detached  itself  from  the  individual  and 
attached  itself  to  the  quality,  had  forgotten  the 
beautiful  being  to  think  only  of  his  beauty.     For 

291 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

Royce,  love  is  not  love  unless  it  has  succeeded  in 
making  its  object  irreplaceable. 

Now  I  do  not  know  whether  this  constitutes  a 
complete  definition  of  love.  There  is  something 
hopeful  about  the  suggestion  that  it  may  do  soj  for 
if  no  one  has  been  able  to  say  anything  very  articu- 
late about  love,  neither  has  anyone  said  much  that 
is  intelligible  about  individuation.  But  certain  diffi- 
culties occur  to  one.  Is  love  the  only  thing  that  in- 
dividuates? If  there  is  such  a  thing  as  Platonic 
hate,  which  I  suppose  would  be  the  sort  of  hate 
that  hates  the  sin  and  not  the  sinner,  why  should 
there  not  be  such  a  thing  as  a  romantic  hate  whose 
object  would  be  just  the  sinner  and  not  his  fault? 
Or  may  not  a  process  of  individuation  go  on,  cold 
and  impassible,  untouched  by  either  hate  or  love? 

One  day  Flaubert  took  his  disciple  by  the  hand 
and  led  him  into  the  secret  places  of  art.  The 
talent  of  the  artist,  he  said,  is  a  long  patience  spent 
in  learning  how  to  portray  so  that  your  portrayal 
leaves  the  object  it  offers  just  as  individual  as  the 
thing  it  found.  "  When  you  pass  a  grocer  sitting 
at  his  door,  or  a  concierge  smoking  his  pipe,  or  a 
stand  of  cabs,  show  me  this  grocer  and  this  con- 
cierge, their  pose,  their  physical  appearance,  suggest- 
ing also  by  the  skill  of  your  image  all  their  moral 

292 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

nature  in  such  wise  that  I  do  not  confuse  them  with 
any  other  grocer  or  with  any  other  concrierge.  And 
make  me  see  with  a  single  stroke  in  what  a  certain 
cab  horse  is  unlike  fifty  others  following  him  or 
going  before." 

Why,  then,  besides  love  and  hate,  art  too  claims 
to  be  that  which  individuates  —  and  not  because,  if 
we  may  believe  a  certain  philosophically  minded 
critic,  art  has  borrowed  anything  of  love  or  hate. 
This  disciple  of  Flaubert,  this  Maupassant,  carried 
out  his  master's  teachings  if  ever  an  artist  did,  but 
there  is  that  in  his  way  of  doing  it  which  makes  one 
feel  that  Anatole  France's  account  of  him  is  not  al- 
together wanting:   "  He  is  the  great  painter  of  the 
human  grimace.    He  paints  without  hate  and  with- 
out love,  without  anger  and  without  pity  —  hard- 
fisted  peasants,  drunken  sailors,  lost  women,  obscure 
clerks  dried  up  in  the  air  of  the  office,  and  all  the 
humble  folk  whose  humility  is  without  beauty  and 
without  merit.     All  these  grotesques  and  all  these 
unfortunates  he  shows  us  so  distinctly  that  we  think 
we  see  them  with  our  own  eyes  and  find  them  more 
real  than  reality  itself.    He  is  a  skillful  artist  who 
knows  he  has  done  all  there  is  to  do  when  he  has 
given  life  to  things.    His  indifference  is  as  indiffer- 
ent as  nature." 

I  am  not  so  very  confident  that  all  these  claimants 

293 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

to  the  right  of  individuating  —  love,  hate,  art  — 
are  equal  claimants.  As  for  hate,  some  poverty  of 
experience  may  account  for  the  fact  that  all  I  know 
of  this  romantically  valued  emotion  has  sometime 
been  directed  against  persons  unknown,  whose  man- 
ner of  conducting  themselves  on  the  earth  beneath 
and  in  the  waters  under  the  earth  showed  nothing 
more  clearly  than  that  they  had  forgotten  the  human 
being  and  were  utterly  lost  in  loyalty.  A  hate  of 
such  poor  quality  cannot  well  be  said  to  individuate, 
and  it  is  certainly  not  any  experience  of  my  own 
that  would  lead  me  to  suppose  romantic  hate,  as  we 
have  imagined  it,  to  be  real.  Respecting  the  im- 
passibility of  the  creative  artist,  I  am  no  less  skepti- 
cal, and  so  I  think  is  France  at  bottom  5  for  of  this 
same  artist  whose  indifference  is  as  indifferent  as 
nature,  he  says  in  another  passage  of  the  same  ap- 
preciation that  his  hardened  hero  "  is  ashamed  of 
nothing  but  his  large  native  kindliness,  careful  to 
hide  what  is  most  exquisite  in  his  soul." 

No,  I  am  not  convinced  that  love  has  any  rivals  in 
the  art  of  individuating,  and  if  not,  then  to  call  it 
that  which  individuates  is  to  define  it  completely. 
But  whether  it  is  a  deduction  from  this  definition 
or  whether  it  is  an  independent  element  in  a  fuller 
definition  of  love,  it  must  be  set  down  as  an  impor- 
tant fact  about  it  that  love  wants  the  will  and  desire 

294 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

of  the  beloved  to  prevail.  It  wants  the  will  of 
another  to  prevail,  and  as  the  easiest  and  most  obvi- 
ous way  of  bringing  about  this  result  is  to  yield  its 
own  will,  it  has  generally  been  supposed  that  love 
was  less  the  art  of  individuating  than  the  art  of 
yielding.  But  this  is  just  the  mistake  that  has  pre- 
vented love  from  taking  its  place  among  the  more 
seriously  meant  categories  of  philosophy  and  reali- 
ties of  lifej  for  this  yielding  disposition  that  might 
be  supposed  to  make  for  peace  in  a  republic  of 
lovers  is  the  very  matter  introducing  trouble  and 
perplexity  there.  It  is  the  very  matter  that  has 
made  traditional  Christianity  less  effective  than  it 
might  have  been,  failing  where  it  fails,  not  because 
there  is  anything  better  to  be  conceived  than  its 
gospel  of  love,  but  because  it  has  supposed  a  good 
heart  and  convinced  will  was  enough  to  bring  about 
its  kingdom. 

Our  two  great  experiments  at  loving  —  the  love 
of  man  and  woman  and  the  love  of  one's  neighbor 
—  have  been  too  much  alike  in  this,  that  they  both 
supposed  love  to  be  the  sort  of  thing  one  could  fall 
into  and  be  done  with.  But  it  is  clear  this  is  not  at 
all  the  way  of  the  matter,  and  in  our  poor  imagin- 
ings about  the  lovers'  republic  we  have  been  too 
much  guided  by  our  imperfect  experience  of  what 
our  loves  have  been  to  think  our  way  into  what  the 

295 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

love  that  individuates  ought  to  be.  Oh,  yes,  our 
love  has  yielded  j  its  great  vice  has  been  its  content- 
ment in  yielding  rather  than  suffer  the  labor  and  un- 
rest of  that  thinking  which  alone  could  have  saved 
its  kingdom.  In  this  dear  illogical  passion  for  yield- 
ing, we  have  been  content  with  a  division  of  the 
spoils  3  one  is  allowed  to  give  this,  the  other  that  5 
one  now,  the  other  thenj  and  so  we  have  patched  up 
our  lovers'  quarrel  as  best  we  could  without  logic. 
But  logic,  which  is  supposed  to  have  nothing  to  do 
with  love  and  has  had  little  enough  to  do  with  the 
old  loves  of  this  world,  has  everything  to  do  with 
the  love  that  individuates.  For,  the  moment  love 
begins  to  be  a  mutual  affair,  neither  lover  has  the 
right  to  usurp  the  privilege  of  giving  j  else  what  is 
left  for  the  other  lover  to  do?  Without  logic  our 
lovers  are  doomed  to  stand  bowing  to  each  other 
before  the  door  of  promise  till  time  grows  gray. 

However,  besides  logic  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
bad  logic,  which  is  perhaps  nothing  more  than  a  well- 
meant  half-thoughtfulness  in  presence  of  puzzling 
experience.  As  a  result  of  this  half-thoughtfulness 
there  has  sometimes  crept  a  half -reasonableness  into 
the  matter  we  are  considering,  which  would  begin 
by  suggesting  that  the  various  and  contradictory  de- 
sires of  lovers,  though  equally  strong,  cannot,  save 
by  improbable  chance,  be  equally  high  and  worth 

296 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

while  j  that,  therefore,  the  logical  thing  to  do  would 
be  to  let  the  lower  ideal  recognize  the  higher  and 
bow  to  it,  while  the  higher  might  somehow  forget 
its  longing  to  give  and  content  its  poor  heart  with 
being  given  to. 

There  are  many  difficulties  in  the  way  of  making 
such  an  account  of  the  affair  persuasive,  but  there 
are  more  serious  troubles  ahead  of  anyone  who  would 
try  to  make  it  meaningful.  Chief  of  these  is  the 
hopelessness  of  defining  high  and  low  in  the  matter 
of  purposes  and  ideals.  Here,  once  more,  Royce 
is  quick  to  analyze  the  difficulty  and  remove  itj  for, 
if  I  read  him  aright,  he  sees  no  way,  and  no  more 
do  I,  by  which  the  value  of  ultimate  objects  of  de- 
sire may  be  compared.  It  is  easy  to  calculate  the 
better  means,  but  how  is  one  to  know  the  better 
end?  Only  this  may  we  do  —  we  may  discover  that 
purposes  which  seem  contradictory  are  not  really  so, 
and  that  neither  need  sacrifice  itself  to  the  other  if 
thought  be  allowed  to  work  its  perfect  work.  No 
doubt  happiness  lies  in  getting  what  we  wantj  but 
this  is  not  the  same  as  getting  what  we  think  we 
want,  as  capturing  what  we  go  after  j  for  our  wants 
are  none  the  less  hard  to  make  out  because  they  are 
our  own. 


297 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

This,  then,  is  thought's  infinitely  difficult  task  in 
the  service  of  love,  to  analyze  apparent  desires  until 
it  has  found  the  real  want  at  the  core  of  appearance, 
while  the  postulate  on  which  alone  the  advent  of 
the  kingdom  becomes  possible  is  that  thought  may 
find  our  real  wants  not  contradictory.  The  times 
are  not  without  sign  that  Christianity  as  an  ethics  is 
coming  to  realize  how  very  intellectual  is  the  task 
it  has  set  itself  in  trying  to  bring  the  kingdom  of 
Christ's  vision  to  be  on  earth.  What  Christianity 
most  needs,  writes  Tennant,  is  a  philosophy. 

The  brief  time  we  allow  ourselves  for  our  utter- 
ances ought  yet  to  prove  ample  for  a  person  of 
industry  and  thrift  to  make  himself  thoroughly  mis- 
understood j  and  I  hope  I  have  used  it  to  no  less 
purpose  on  this  than  on  former  occasions  j  but  among 
the  misunderstandings  I  would  prevent,  if  I  could, 
is  that  which  would  sum  up  the  matter  of  my  dis- 
course as  a  defense  of  individualism  against  collec- 
tivism. Such  an  issue  could  only  be  meaningful  for 
one  to  whom  the  collectivity  was  denied  some  sort  of 
individuality  which  the  "  individual  "  enjoys.  But 
I  have  tried  to  show  that  I  could  conceive  no  such 
difference  between  the  mind  of  the  part  and  the 
mind  of  the  group.  The  group  mind  may  be  loved 
with  the  human  love  that  individuates,  as  well  as 

298 


ROYCE  ON  LOVE  AND  LOYALTY 

can  the  soul  of  a  fellow-man;  and  no  doubt  one 
may  love  one's  country  as  a  mistress.  But  the  dif- 
ference between  the  love  of  equals  and  the  love  of 
constituents  is  plain.  The  latter  sort  of  love  can 
last  only  so  long  as  its  object  endures,  and  as  long 
as  it  lasts  its  sacrifices  are  incurable  j  for  in  a  world 
that  has  conquered  strife  there  would  no  longer  be 
that  contradiction  between  the  will  of  a  group  and 
the  will  of  its  parts,  which  alone  makes  the  group 
entity  meaningful.  Groups  bound  in  mutual  respect 
of  each  other  and  studying  to  preserve  their  parts 
irreplaceable  have  no  minds-,  the  entity  born  of 
struggle  and  calling  for  sacrifice  has  simply  disap- 
peared; where  we  had  a  group  mind,  we  have  now 
but  an  aggregate  of  minds,  "  a  fluid  complex  of  re- 
lations among  individuals."  But  the  love  of  equals 
can  push  on  toward  the  ideal  without  destroying  the 
very  object  of  its  devotion;  it  can  go  on  searching 
the  core  of  concord  in  the  stupid  appearance  of  dis- 
cord until  love  has  found  a  way  to  make  loyalty  a 
lost  virtue  and  a  group  mind  a  thing  that  is  no  more. 


299 


XI 


RETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT 


RETROSPECT    AND    PROSPECT 

When  I  had  gathered  together  the  pages  in 
which  for  a  time  I  had  been  living  with  these  men 
whose  thought  had  been  so  real  a  thing  to  me,  who 
one  by  one  had  said  their  word  and  left  it  to  live  or 
die  according  as  men's  hearts  received  it,  I  was  as 
though  suddenly  and  newly  aware  of  the  great  mod- 
ern city  without  pressing  on  my  window-panes.  Little 
by  little  its  vast  insistent  presence  seemed  to  push 
my  whilom  companions  out  of  the  room  of  being 
back  to  their  places  among  the  many  silent  dead. 
For  indeed,  I  reflected,  how  few,  how  vanishingly 
small  a  number  of  those  who  are  out  there  will  be 
better,  worse  or  different  for  anything  these  lives 
had  spent  themselves  to  gain  and  to  give. 

If  such  thoughts  came  to  me,  as  to  any  one  they 
might,  must  they  not  have  come  often  and  often  to 
those  of  whom  I  have  been  telling?  and  must  not 
these  men  have  been  seized  at  times  with  a  wistful 
sense  of  the  humor  of  their  situation?  If  so,  what 
gave  them  courage  to  keep  on  and  to  endure  until 
the  end?  Was  it  that  by  some  fatality  they  were 
bond-slaves    to    the    remote,    from    whose    dom- 

303 


RETROSPECT    AND    PROSPECT 

inance  they  could  not,  even  if  they  would,  have 
freed  themselves?  For  one  may  suppose  that  all 
men,  even  philosophers,  are  human  enough  some- 
times to  crave  the  response  of  their  fellows  to  the 
effort  of  their  lives  5  the  recognition  not  merely  of 
some  few  initiated  ones,  but  of  the  many  or  of  those 
who  represent  the  many  by  the  simplicity  of  their 
thought.  Must  not  many  a  one  whose  labor  was 
with  the  stars  have  stopped  on  his  way  to  envy  some 
singer  at  the  street-corner  whose  trivial  melody  had 
caught  the  ear  and  held  the  steps  of  passers-by? 
What  reasoning  then,  or  what  destiny  carried  our 
star-gazer  on  to  his  lonely  vigil? 

You  may  say,  the  psychology  of  the  man  who 
thinks  of  cosmic  things  is  simple  and  that  his  stead- 
fastness is  due  to  his  inability  to  realize  or  his  abil- 
ity to  forget  the  homely  intimate  things  of  life 
that  to  the  rest  of  us  are,  if  not  important,  yet  all 
the  more  indispensable.  To  this  I  answer:  'tis  un- 
likely! But  whether  true  or  not  of  any  of  those 
whose  thoughts  must  seem  (if  I  have  not  entirely 
failed  to  render  them)  so  much  our  own,  let  it  not 
be  true  of  us! 

I  mean,  that  no  one  can  think  of  himself  as  likely 
to  enrich  the  world  so  greatly  by  his  thought  and 
labor  that  he  may  count  himself  to  be  or  encourage 
himself  to  become  a  soul  solitary  to  its  toil.    Which, 

304 


RETROSPECT    AND    PROSPECT 

being  so  of  our  lives  as  a  whole,  we  frequently  feel 
and  wholesomely  feel  that  it  is  not  very  well  for 
us  to  indulge  even  moments  of  these  lives  in  studies 
and  reflections  so  detached  from  all  the  give  and 
take  of  our  other  time  as  to  leave  no  trace  of  in- 
fluence there. 

Perhaps  indeed  it  cannot  be  said  of  any  of  our 
momentary  flights  away  from  familiar  things  that 
we  come  back  from  them  with  no  star-dust  on  our 
wings,  and  so  these  spirit  holidays  may  be  excused 
as  may  any  other  holiday  on  the  ground  of  their 
quickening  and  refreshment.  But  little  as  I  would 
quarrel  with  holidays  of  any  kind,  and  satisfied  as 
I  should  be  had  any  one  found  these  pages  opening 
to  him  a  door  to  some  fourth  dimension  where 
momentary  exhilaration  or  passing  forgetfulness 
might  be  found,  yet  I  have  the  feeling  that  holidays 
are  but  a  poor  imperfect  device  for  making  other 
days  more  livable. 

In  these  last  reflections,  I  am  sensible  that  I  have 
been  clumsily  feeling  my  way  to  the  asking  of  a 
question.  It  is  this:  May  we  not  bring  the  experi- 
ence of  the  most  thoughtful  men  of  the  centuries 
that  have  gone  before  so  to  bear  in  our  daily  living 
that  it  will  no  longer  be  noble,  because  no  longer 
necessary,  to  scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days 
(save  holidays)?     May  not  these  men  have  been 

305 


RETROSPECT    AND    PROSPECT 

the  prophets  of  that  mediation  which  will  make 
labor  and  delight  one  thing?  May  it  not  be  possible 
for  us  after  their  leading  so  to  live  and  strive  in  the 
moment  that  more  and  more  of  the  whole  toward 
which  it  tends  may  be  felt  in  it?  And  this  whole, 
the  while,  will  it  not  come  so  to  be  conceived  that 
its  real  presence  in  the  crumb  of  bread  and  drop  of 
wine  may  make  of  our  daily  partaking  a  sacrament 
as  bright  as  it  is  enduring? 

If  so,  and,  as  it  seems  to  me,  only  if  so,  will 
these  thinkers  about  the  whole  have  found  that  for 
which  they  seemed  to  waste  their  being  —  the  re- 
sponse of  the  man  living  the  moment,  which  is 
everyman.  Then  will  we  the  studious  have  brought 
back  from  our  wanderings  with  these  "  souls  of  men 
outworn  "  something  more  than  ineflFable  things  and 
memories  of  dreams  dreamt  with  them.  To  men 
bound  for  the  most  part  to  live  the  moment,  that 
moment  would  not  have  lost  its  throbbing  intimacy 
because  it  had  lost  its  solitude. 

Now  of  all  desirable  things,  one  may  feel  and 
in  a  poor  fashion  of  words  try  to  tell  how  desirable 
they  are,  without  having  much  hope  of  securing 
them  for  himself  or  of  being  able  to  offer  them  to 
others.  But  it  cannot  be  a  bad  way  to  begin  winning 
something  for  oneself  at  least  by  enriching  one's 
reflection  with  all  the  stored  experience  of  history. 

306 


RETROSPECT    AND    PROSPECT 

And  as  history  is  not  always  easy  to  gather,  it  is  at 
least  a  generous  impulse  to  tell  of  what  is  to  be 
found  there  a  little  more  simply  and  compendiously 
than  others  have  cared  to  tell  it.  Which  done  — 
and  the  doing  of  it  has  that  peculiar  quality  of 
giving  to  the  labor  of  the  moment  its  sense  of  partic- 
ipation —  it  is  time  to  look  about  one  with  one's 
own  eyes. 

What  under  such  circumstances  the  private  eye, 
turning  from  the  past  and  peering  into  the  future, 
thinks  it  sees  there,  might  well  be  kept  private  for 
all  the  authority  it  can  have  and  for  all  the  interest 
it  may  have  for  another.  Each  will  have  his  own 
vision  of  the  horizon.  But  it  has  never  been  found 
that  the  truth  is  in  the  end  better  made  out  by  each 
holding  his  own  counsel  as  to  what  he  timidly  thinks 
he  descries  there.  No,  out  of  the  confusion  of 
many  witnesses  comes  what  little  we  have  guessed 
or  can  hope  to  guess  of  truth,  and  no  less  of  that 
truth  which,  because  it  deals  with  the  tie  that  binds 
the  least  with  the  greatest  of  things,  I  venture  to 
call  religious. 

In  these  pages,  little  or  no  mention  has  been 
made  of  those  great  historic  religions  in  whose  name 
temples  and  cathedrals  have  been  built,  and  throngs 
have  been  moved  to  worship  and  to  war.    This  nQg- 

307 


RETROSPECT    AND    PROSPECT 

lect  has  not  been  due  to  indifference:  it  will  perhaps 
have  been  felt  that  these  matters  were  present  to  the 
writer  as  the  background  against  which  the  thought 
of  the  philosophers  had  to  be  portrayed  if  we  were 
to  gain  insight  into  their  motives  and  meanings.  But 
our  study  was  to  be  of  those  who  had  given  reasons 
for  the  faith  that  was  in  them,  or  it  might  be  for 
their  lack  of  faith.  This,  the  great  swaying  mass  of 
humanity  cannot  be  expected  to  do,  and  if  the 
learned  and  thoughtful  of  its  various  communions 
have  constantly  tried  to  do  it  for  their  fellows, 
these  studious  devout  minds  are  led  by  the  very 
diligence  of  their  reflection  to  interpret  the  form- 
ulas of  the  throng  in  a  way  the  throng  could  not 
understand.  Thus  they  too  become  philosophers, 
and  for  the  depth  and  learning  of  their  thought  are 
as  interesting  as  any  of  those  here  presented.  It 
would  be  hard  to  find  in  history  a  clearer  and  more 
judicious  mind  than  Thomas  Aquinas. 

But  because  these  theologians  are  in  modern 
times  the  exponents  of  religious  views  that  are 
widely  spread  in  some  manifest  form  or  other,  we 
may  assume  that  they  are  familiar  figures  in  the 
thoughts  of  men  of  our  day  and  civilization. 
Wherefore  it  is  of  others,  churchless  and  alone,  with 
nothing  but  their  personal  writings  to  make  their 
views  known,  yet  religious  in  the  object  of  their 

308 


RETROSPECT    AND    PROSPECT 

inquiry  and  in  the  conduct  of  their  thought,  that  I 
have  chosen  to  speak. 

The  immense  dialectic  of  the  thought  of  these 
men  has  presented  so  many  aspects  of  the  religious 
problem  that  it  must  have  left  in  the  reader  a  sense 
of  confusion  if  not  of  bewilderment.  Such  a  baffled 
mood  comes  on  every  thoughtful  student,  not  once, 
but  again  and  again,  as  he  reviews  the  past  and  tries 
to  estimate  the  value  of  its  gain  5  to  consider  what 
has  definitely  perished  with  its  time,  what  perhaps 
marks  development  and  points  somewhither. 

Let  me  then  suggest  as  well  as  may  be  done  in 
a  few  words  some  things  these  men  have  put  behind 
them  and  some  things  to  which,  with  all  their  mu- 
tual opposition,  they  seem  resultantly  to  point. 

In  the  first  place,  their  common  assumption  has 
been  that  the  way  of  arriving  at  religious  truth  was 
by  reason  or  experience,  not  by  what  is  commonly 
called  "  revelation."  There  is  nothing  new  or  mod- 
ern in  this  attitude  of  mind.  The  earliest  critics 
of  popular  religion  share  the  feeling  that  (as  Xeno- 
phanes  wrote,  in  the  sixth  century  B.C.): 

By  no  means  at  the  beginning  did  the  gods  reveal  all  things 

to  mortals, 
But  mortals  themselves,   by  inquiry,  in  time  have  made 

gradual  progress. 

309 


RETROSPECT    AND    PROSPECT 

And  even  among  those  who  did  not  mean  to  be 
critics,  we  find  some  devoutly  maintaining  that  di- 
vine revelation  brings  naught  that  reason  and  ex- 
perience cannot  confirm  3  naught,  then,  they  could 
not  have  reached:  "  Non  alia  est  philosophia,  i.e., 
sapientiae  studium,  et  alia  religio,"  writes  John 
Scotus  in  the  ninth  century.  "  Quid  est  aliud  de 
philosophia  tractare  nisi  verae  religionis  regulas  ex- 
ponere?  Conficitur  inde  veram  esse  philosophiam 
veram  religionem  conversimque  veram  religionem 
esse  veram  philosophiam.     {De  fraedest.  proem,) 

But  those  who  from  revelation  turn  to  reason  and 
those  who  turn  to  experience  for  evidence  in  all 
matters,  are  of  two  different  tempers  of  mind  and 
habits  of  thought.  The  first  we  found  represented 
in  Spinoza  with  his  Ethlca  ordine  geometrico  demon- 
strata;  the  second  in  Hume  with  his  methods  of 
natural  history  and  human  history. 

Of  these  two  schools,  I  think  we  may  regard 
the  first  as  definitely  closed.  That  is,  to  establish  the 
existence  of  God  by  logic  alone  and  as  a  necessity 
of  thought,  would  only  be  dreamed  of  today  by  those 
who  meant  by  God,  by  logic,  and  by  thought's 
necessity  something  quite  different  from  anything 
the  seventeenth  century  rationalist  could  have  meant 
by  those  terms. 

Yet  to  say  that  the  method  of  a  Spinoza  is  dead, 

310 


RETROSPECT    AND    PROSPECT 

is  not  to  say  that  his  contribution  to  the  spiritual 
problems  with  which  he  dealt  is  naught.  Nothing 
could  be  more  important  to  our  whole  attitude  to- 
ward these  problems  than  Spinoza's  insight:  The 
scientific  demand  that  we  treat  nature  as  an  invio- 
lable mechanism  and  the  ethical  demand  that  the 
human  element  in  nature  remain  a  free  agent  are 
consistent.  It  can  readily  be  seen  that  all  the  rest 
of  one's  thoughts  about  the  world  must  hang  upon 
one's  acceptance  or  non-acceptance  of  this  reconcilia- 
tion of  mechanical  necessity  and  living  freedom. 
(It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  all  later 
thought  was  agreed  that  Spinoza  had  effected  this 
reconciliation  3  perhaps  the  present  writer  is  without 
company  in  thinking  that  Spinoza's  indications  in  this 
sense  may  be  followed  to  a  clear  and  satisfactory 
issue.) 

If  the  method  of  rationalism  has  lost  meaning 
for  us,  do  we  then  abide  in  the  confidence  that  ex- 
perimental science  must  find  all  that  is  to  be  found 
of  an  object  for  religion  to  attach  itself  to?  To 
my  thinking,  no!  Or  rather,  the  meaning  of  ex- 
perience and  with  it  of  empirical  science  has  been 
so  altered  by  later  reflection  that  the  relation  between 
human  desire  and  human  finding  is  no  longer  con- 
ceived to  be  that  austere  separation  which  a  Hume, 


3" 


RETROSPECT    AND    PROSPECT 

a  Clifford  or  a  Huxley  made  the  basis  of  intellectual 
honesty  and  even  of  moral  honor. 

There  is  nevertheless  one  result  of  the  empirical 
philosophy  which  it  is  hard  to  believe  we  shall  ever 
set  aside.  Whatever  we  may  have  come  to  think 
experience  means,  those  who  have  once  entered  into 
the  spirit  of  these  clear  thinkers  will  not  lightly 
abandon  the  idea  that  experience  is  one.  There  is 
not  for  most  of  us  one  kind  of  experience  that  con- 
firms the  law  of  falling  stones  and  revolving 
planets,  another  unrelated  kind  that  gives  us  a  sym- 
pathetic but  inarticulate  insight  into  life  and  its  ways, 
and  yet  another  which  in  incomparable  theophanies 
reveals  to  us  another  world.  In  a  word,  empiricism 
has  taught  us  to  accept  the  postulate  that  whatever 
the  nature  of  our  beliefs,  their  meaning  must  be 
communicable,  their  evidence  must  be  demonstrable 
by  one  to  another. 

What  has  happened  to  change  things  since 
Hume's  day  is,  first  of  all,  just  a  deeper  searching 
into  the  meaning  of  experience  itself,  with  perhaps 
this  finding:  that  the  reality  our  empirical  science 
reveals  to  us  is  not  merely  a  thing  found  and  re- 
ceived but  also  a  thing  willed  and  made,  Kantian 
criticism  it  was  that  suggested  the  part  played  by 
the  knower  in  the  formation  of  the  thing  known. 
This  knower  was  not  merely  informed  by  experience 

312 


RETROSPECT    AND    PROSPECT 

as  to  the  world  he  had  chanced  on,  but  of  himself 
he  informed  his  world.  Imperfect,  disconnected 
and  unconvincing  as  were  Kant's  efforts  to  state  and 
illustrate  this  conception,  it  is  nevertheless  to  him 
that  one  turns  for  the  first  suggestion  of  that  ideal- 
ism whose  more  recent  expressions  have  been  illus- 
trated in  the  chapter  on  Pragmatism. 

Meanwhile,  really  unaffected  by  this  development 
of  method  are  Schopenhauer's  gloomy  findings  and 
Nietzsche's  exaltation  of  the  might  of  man.  Just 
as  the  facts  of  life  as  he  observed  it  left  Hume 
unable  to  point  to  anything  in  experience  that 
could  guide  life  religiously,  so  these  facts  as  Scho- 
penhauer more  fully  took  them  in  left  life  irreli- 
gious and  blind.  Again,  it  was  but  what  he  took  to 
be  a  broader  experience  that  led  Nietzsche  to  con- 
ceive the  destiny  and  perfectibility  of  life  to  lie 
within  the  control  of  life  itself,  and  it  is  only  a  still 
broader  view  of  experience  that  robs  this  philosophy 
for  us  of  what  inspiration  it  had  and  leaves  it  but 
a  gospel  of  gritting-the-teeth. 

Yet  we  may  not  lay  aside  these  two  "  findings  " 
regarding  life  without  noting  how  deeply  each  has 
seen  into  the  human  heart.  If  the  insight  of  each 
is  directly  contradictory  to  the  insight  of  the  other, 
it  is  because  the  human  heart  is  in  contradiction  with 
itself. 

313 


RETROSPECT    AND    PROSPECT 

It  can  listen,  this  heart  of  man,  to  the  voice  of 
Schopenhauer  crying  for  peace.  It  can  understand 
this  voice  even  to  the  point  of  feeling  that  the 
peace  of  those  who  have  ceased  to  be  is  happier  than 
the  being  of  those  who  have  lost  hope  of  peace. 
Not  indeed  for  us  is  the  "  melius  est  ipsum  esse 
quam  non  esse  "  of  older  simpler  times. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  Nietzsche  would  not  make 
the  appeal  he  does  if  man  did  not  shrink  from  every 
vision  of  peace  that  has  ever  been  offered  to  him,  as 
from  something  worse  than  nonentity.  Indeed  we 
"  envy  not  the  dead  that  rest.    .    .    . 

What  peace  could  ever  be  to  me 
The  joy  that  strives  with  strife?  " 

Thus  it  would  seem  that  the  philosophy  which 
alone  can  bring  to  pass  that  gladness  of  the  moment 
which  comes  not  from  its  content,  but  from  what 
there  is  mixed  in  it  of  fulfilment  and  of  promise  — 
that  philosophy  must  give  validity  to  two  theses: 

(i)  Reality  must  in  all  its  aspects  be  shown  to 
be  such  a  thing  as  human  effort  may  make  and 
mould. 

(2)  This  effort  must  set  before  itself  an  ideal 
in  which  are  consistently  included  all  that  is  genuine 
in  the  old  ideals  calling  themselves  Peace  and  War. 

314 


RETROSPECT    AND    PROSPECT 

If  the  first  of  these  theses  was  the  topic  of  the 
chapter  on  Pragmatism,  the  second  was  that  which 
inspired  the  conception  of  Progress.  Only  if  to 
each  moment  of  life  there  is  vividly  present  the 
sense  that  it  is  a  moment  of  creation,  and  equally 
present  a  satisfaction  in  the  vision  of  what  is  to  be 
created,  can  the  moment  be  a  joyous  one.  Not 
joyous  in  a  way  to  wring  from  us  a  "  Verweile  doch! 
du  bist  so  schon!  "  But  joyous  with  that  quality 
which  would  let  our  Aveht  z  welcome  to  the  hoped 
for,  our  Vale  a  benediction  on  a  promise  left  behind. 

If  our  Modern  Thinkers  have  done  aught  to 
help  us  so  to  pass  a  moment,  why,  so,  let  them  pass. 

Finis 


315 


INDEX 


a  Kempis,  Schopenhauer  and, 

165. 

Amiel,  215. 

amoralist,  272,  274. 

Antigone,  262. 

a  'posteriorly  103. 

a  pioriy    103,    135. 

Aquinas,  24,  306. 

Aristotle,    24,    25,    87,    287, 

288. 
art,  and  the    universal,    168— 

1 70 J   individuates,    292— 

294. 
asceticism,    Schopenhauer    on, 

174-176. 
assent,   Newman's   "  Grammar 

of,"  240. 
atnditas  vitacy  Huxley's,  203. 

Bacon,  Francis,  55,  102,  245, 
246. 

Balfour,  244,  245. 

beautiful,  Schopenhauer's  the- 
ory of  the,  168-170. 

Berti,  Vita  di  Giordano 
Bruno y  i i . 

body,  and  mind,  43,  44. 

Bourdeau,  J.,  239,  240. 

Bourdeau,  L.,  221-224. 

Bourget,   "  Le  Disciple,"  66- 

93- 


Brahminism,  Schopenhauer 
and,  165. 

Brow^ning,  201. 

Bruno,  iii,  Mocenigo's  de- 
nunciation of,  3—8 ;  trial 
at  Venice,  9—18;  re- 
cantation, 18;  new  as- 
tronomy, 1 8-2 1 ;  ethical 
and  religious  conse- 
quences, 21—26;  "new 
philosophy,"  pantheism, 
29—31 ;  Schoppius  on  sen- 
tence and  execution  of, 
33-34;  and  Spinoza,  37, 

38;  195. 
Buddhism,  Schopenhauer  and, 
165,  176,  177,  187. 

cannibals,  Melville  on,  249— 
251;  Montaigne  on,  251— 
254. 

categorical,  good,  oughty  see 
imperative. 

Christianity,  Kant  and,  144, 
145;  Schopenhauer  and, 
165;  Nietzsche  and,  185, 
204;  its  intellectual  task, 
298. 

civilization,  a  decadence,  255, 
256. 

Clifford,  312. 


317 


INDEX 


Clough,  226. 

Coleridge,  Mary,   314. 

Copernicus,  20,  21. 

Croce,  286,  288. 

Cusanus,  Nicolaus,    286,   289. 

Dante,  his  world,   22. 

Darwin,  influence  on  Nietz- 
sche, 191-193. 

Decalogue,  135, 

Descartes,  and  Spinoza,  39—43  > 
102,  265. 

determinism,  Spinoza's,  38,  43, 
44,  51-53,  65,  67-76, 
308,  309;  of  mechanical 
ideal,  80-82. 

disciple,  Bourget's  "  Le  Dis- 
ciple," 66;  problem  and 
plot  in  relation  to  Spinoza, 
67—76;  discussion  of 
problem,  mechanism,  pur- 
pose, and  freedom,  79— 
90;  outcome,  90-93. 

empiricism,  102-105,  309, 
310. 

Epictetus,  278. 

Epicurus,  "Garden  of,"  22; 
97,   no. 

Ethica,  ordtne  geometrico  de- 
monstratay   37,   310. 

evolution,  Nietzsche  and  doc- 
trine of  organic,  191- 
193. 


Fichte,  65,  I47>  IS2>  157' 


Flaubert,  166,  292,  293. 

France,  Anatole,  contrasts  an- 
cient and  modem  worlds, 
22,  23,  166;  on  realism 
in  history,  221-224;  264, 
292,  293. 

freedom,  consistent  with  mech- 
anism, 51-53,  82-90; 
Kant  on,   138. 

Fourlians,  morality  of,  118— 
121. 

geometry,  ethics  after  manner 
of,  37;  40,  41,  43,  310. 

Gierke,  289. 

God,  ontological  proof  of,  41, 
43;  Kant,  129,  140-144, 
146-147;  "is  dead," 
183-185. 

Goethe,  315. 

good,  the,  see  imperative; 
259-271. 

Gottrunkenefy  Spinoza  ein,  50. 

Gourmont,  Remy  de,  273. 

group,  mind  of,  286—290,  299. 

Hardy,  166,  167. 

Hegel,   147,   157. 

Heine,  213. 

Hobbes,   102,  266-270. 

humanity,  Hume  on,  124. 

Hume,  personality,  98-102; 
inheritance  of  empiricism, 
102—105;  on  experience 
vs.  miracles,  105-IIO;  on 
Providence    and     Future 


318 


INDEX 


State,  lia-113;  on  Nat- 
ural Religion,  reasons  for 
vacillation,  113-117;  on 
problem  of  morals  and 
definition  of  virtue,  1 1 7— 
123;  on  virtue  and  hap- 
piness, 123-125;  225, 
226,  264,  265,  309,  310. 

Huxley,  his  "  aviditas  vitae^^ 
203; 310. 

hypothetical,  good,  ougkty  see 
imperative. 

ideal,  mechanical,  80-82; 
teleological,  87;  of  prog- 
ress, 279. 

idealism,  German,  29;  217. 

immortality,    Kant    on,     138, 

139- 

imperative,  Kant  on  hypo- 
thetical and  categorical, 
129-135;   259-261. 

individuation,  effected  by  love, 
141-143,  291,  292, 
294—297;  effected  by  art, 
292-294. 

Inquisition,  Bruno  before  the 
Holy,  3-18,33. 

Jesus,    Nietzsche^s    conception 

of,  187,  195-198. 
James,  see  Pragmatism. 
John  Scotus,  310. 

Kant,  iv,  65;  attitude  toward 
religion,  129;  on  imper- 
atives, 129-135;  on  pre- 


suppositions of  morality, 
135—144;  postulates  free- 
dom, immortality,  God, 
144—148;  moral  law, 
first  formulation,  1 49— 
150;  second  formulation, 
150,  151;  on  harmony 
of  wills,  151,  152;  185, 
259-261,  312. 

law,  mechanical  and  teleologi- 
cal, 84-90,  1 1 5-1 1 7. 

Leconte  de  Lisle,  227. 

Leibnitz,  29,  231. 

Leviathan,  Hobbes's,  266—270. 

Locke,  102. 

logic,  and  ethics,  40,  41 ;  and 
love,    295-298. 

Loisy,  I'Abbe,  240. 

Louys,  Pierre,  151. 

love,  individuates,  141— 143, 
291,  292,  294-297;  and 
logic,  295-298. 

loyalty,  defines  morality,  266, 
272;    defined,    286-288. 

Lucretius,    97,    163,    184. 

Mach,  Ernst,  214. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  2 10. 

Maupassant,  166,  292,  293. 

mechanism,  Spinoza  on,  38, 
43>  44>  5i-53>  65,  67- 
76,  310,  311 ;  ideal  of, 
80-82;  consistent  with 
purpose  and  freedom,  ^i— 
53,  82-90. 


319 


INDEX 


Melville,  Herman,  on  Typees, 
249--251. 

mind,  and  body,  43,  44; 
group,  286-290,  299. 

miracles,  Hume's  treatment  in 
"Enquiry,"    1 05-1 08. 

Mocenigo,  his  denunciation  of 
Bruno,  3-8. 

modernism,  and  pragmatism, 
239-242. 

Montaigne,  v,  251-254. 

morality,  Kant's  law  of,  149— 
1 5 1 ;  proposed  as  absolute 
good,  261-266;  ques- 
tioned as  absolute  good, 
266— 270 ;  reformed,  272, 
2733  discarded,  273,  274. 

nature,  man  in  state  of,  249— 
256,  267-269;  conquest 
of,  277-279. 

Newman,  240. 

New  Testament,  Kant  and, 
144. 

Nicolaus,  of  Cusa,  289. 

Nietzsche,  iv;  key-note  of, 
183;  historic  comparisons 
with,  183-186;  and 
Schopenhauer,  1 86-191 ; 
and  Darwin,  1 91-193; 
on  superman  as  goal,  193; 
on  transvaluation,  193— 
197;  on  genealogy  of 
morals,  197—202;  on  an- 
archy, 202—203;  on  will 
to  power,    203-205;   on 


eternal  returning,  206- 
209;  vanishing  goal,  209, 
210;  on  courage,  210; 
on  scientific  spirit,  229— 
231;  274,  311,  312. 

ought,  see  imperative. 
Old     Testament,     world     of, 
i37>  144. 

parallelism,  43,  44. 

Pascal,  27,  147,  240. 

Pascendiy  Encyclical,  239. 

philosophers,  Nietzsche's  esti- 
mate of,  197. 

pietism,  influence  on  Kant, 
144. 

pity,  a  vice,  185-187. 

Plato,  87,  286,  291,  292. 

pragmatism,  v;  relation  to 
realism  and  idealism, 
2 1 3-2 1 7 ;  James's  first 
presentation  of,  217, 
218;  reaction  of  realists 
against,  218-228;  Nietz- 
sche and,  229—232; 
"Will  to  Believe,"  232- 
237;  and  modernism, 
238-242;  and  *  human  * 
religion,  242-243;  phy- 
sical science  and  ideals  of, 
243,  244,  315. 

progress,  v;  skeptics  of,  249- 
259;  conditional  and  ab- 
solute, 259—260;  toward 
moral  good  held  absolute, 
261-266;  morality  proves 


320 


INDEX 


conditional  good,  266— 
271;  as  viewed  by  re- 
formed morality  and  by 
amorality,  271—274;  and 
conflicting  ideals  of  peace 
and  war,  275;  final  defi- 
nition of,  275-279. 

Providence,  Hume  on  "  Partic- 
ular," 110-113. 

purpose,  consistent  with  mech- 
anism, 51-53,  82-90. 

quakerism,  German,  144. 

Rabelais,  151. 

rationalism,  of  Descartes,  39-^ 
43,  102. 

realism,  216;  in  science,  219; 
in  history,  220-224;  in 
ethics,  225;  in  religion, 
226,  238-240;  in  art, 
226,  227. 

religion,  "  Natural  History 
of,"  108;  Kant's  attitude 
toward,  129;  identified 
with  philosophy,  308. 

Rousseau,  256. 

Royce,  155,  265,  284,  285, 
286,  291. 

Schelling,   147,  157. 

Scherer,  on  Amiel,  215. 

Schopenhauer,  iv,  152; 
"World  as  Will,"  156- 
159;  on  universal  strife, 
160-165;       forerunners. 


165,  166;  followers,  166, 
167;  on  suicide,  167, 
168;  on  the  beautiful, 
168— 170;  on  civil  law, 
170— 171;  on  moral  intu- 
ition, 171— 173;  on  de- 
nial of  will,  173-176; 
on  Nirvana,  176-179; 
and  Nietzsche,  184— 191 ; 

313.  314. 
Schopp,        letter        describing 

Bruno's  trial  and  execu- 
tion, 31-34. 

Spinoza,  iv;  family,  life, 
death,  37;  and  Bruno, 
37>  38;  and  Descartes, 
39—44;  on  popular  the- 
ology, 44-49;  ein  Gott- 
runkener,  5  o ;  purpose 
and  freedom,  51—53; 
knowledge,  goodness,  hap- 
piness, 53—61;  102,  187, 
310,  311. 

suicide,  Schopenhauer  on,  167— 
168. 

superman,  iv,  193,  194,  203, 
206. 

super-superman,  iv,  206. 

sympathy,  Hume  on,  124; 
Schopenhauer  on,  171- 
173;  Nietzsche  on,  see 
pity. 

Tasso,  257,  261. 

teleology,  see  purpose. 

Tennant,  298. 

tragedy,    Schopenhauer's    con- 


321 


INDEX 

ception    of,     156,     166,      Venice,  Bruno  before  tribunal 
167.  at,  9-18. 

Typees,  of  Melville,  249-25 1. 

will,  to  live,  see  Schopenhauer; 

J.      '  ^  ^      '       ./,xri  to  power,  see  Nietzsche: 

utility,  Hume  on,  123;  "Why  ^    ,^,. 

<_'  „  to  believe,  see  pragmatism. 

X  leases,     1 24* 

Van  den  Ende,  Francis,  39.  Xenophanes,  184,  309. 


322 


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